
Glass 
Book 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 




"EL de CHAMPLAIIT. 



HISTORICAL SKETCHES 



Northern New York 



AND THE 



ADIRONDACK WILDERNESS 



INCLUDING 



TRADITIONS OF THE INDIANS, EARLY EXPLORERS, 
PIONEER SETTLERS, HERMIT HUNTERS, &c. 



NATHANIEL BARTLETT SYLVESTER. 



OK THR TKOY I'.AK. 



Ye who love the haunts of Nature, 
Love the sunshine of the meadow, 
Love the shadow of the forest, 
Love the wind among the branches, 
And the rain-shower and the snow-storm. 
And tlie rushing of great rivers, 
Through their palisades of pine trees, 

***** 
Listen to these wild traditions. 

— Song of Ht-a-ivat-ka. 



TROY, N. Y.: 

WILLIAM H. YOUNG. 

1877. 




Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1877, by 

Nathaniel Bartlett Sylvester, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



Edward Green, 

Printer, Troy. 






TO THE MEMORY 



OF 



Hi mMm Mr^'^ ht^m^ 

AN ELDER AND A YOUNGER, 

WHO, IN THEIR EARLY MANHOOD, 

BOTH DIED THE SAME YEAR, 

THIS VOLUME 



AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 



i 



PREFACE. 



A few years ago I published in the Troy Times, at the 
solicitation of its editor, an article entitled "John Brown's 
Tract, or the Great Wilderness of Northern New York." 
Since then, my attention, in leisure hours, has been drawn 
irresistibly to the subject, and that meagre and cursory 
article has grown into the book now presented to the 
reading public. 

But if the newspaper article was unsatisfactory, I fear 
the book will be deemed scarcely less so when the wealth 
of historic incident and legendary lore which clusters about 
the territory of which it treats is considered, upon which, 
in this volume, I have, as it were, but opened the door. 

In the olden time, Northern New York was disputed 
ground. It was claimed by the Iroquois of Central New 
York and by the Algonquins of Canada; by the French 
colonists of the St. Lawrence, and by the Dutch and Eng- 
lish settlers of the Hudson. It was surrounded by the war- 
trails of the Indian, and by the war-paths of the armies of 
colonial times. Hence from its first discovery and explora- 
tion by Samuel de Champlain in the summer of 1609 to the 
close of the war of 181 2 with Great Britain, it was the 



IV. PREFACE. 

theater of continuous strife between rival powers contend- 
ing for its mastery. Of the history of this long period 
much has been written, but more of it still lies buried in 
our colonial archives. In the following pages I have at- 
tempted hardly more than to awaken the attention of the 
historical student to this most interesting field of research. 
To several friends who have kindly assisted me in this 
task in the use of books of reference and otherwise, and 
who have aided me with many valuable and practical sug- 
gestions my thanks are due. Among them I desire to men- 
tion Messrs. John M. Francis, Benjamin H. Hall, James 
Forsyth, Alexander G. Johnson, Jerome B. Parmenter, 
William H. Young, Edward Green, and Cha's C. Giles, of 
Troy ; Messrs. Joel Munsell and Henry A. Holmes, State 
Librarian, of Albany ; Messrs. P. Porter Wiggins, A. S. 
Pease, D. F. Ritchie, E. J. Huling, and J. P. Butler, of 
Saratoga Springs; Mr. Charles D. Adams, of Utica ; the 
late Nelson J. Beach, of Watson; Dr. Franklin B. Hough, 
and Mr. W. Hudson Stephens, of Lowville; and Mr. John 
E. Pound, of Lockport. 

Troy, N. Y., 9th April, 1877. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I.— NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

Page. 

Its Attractiveness — Its Ancient Names — It is an Island — 

The Highways of Nations. - - - - 9 

CHAPTER II.— HO-DE-NO-SAU-NEE-GA. 

The Five Nations— Their Government— Their Festivals 
AND Religious Belief— Their Social Life. - - 14 



26 



CHAPTER III.— EARLY EXPLORERS. 
Jacques Cartier— Samuel de Champlain— Henry Hudson. 

CHAPTER IV. -THE GREAT WILDERNESS. 
Couch-sach-ra-ge— Its Aspects and Uses— The Adirondack 

Park — Its Belts. - - - - - - 39 

CHAPTER v.— MOUNTAINS OF THE WILDERNESS. 
The Laurentides— Oldest System of Rocks— The Five 
Mountain Ranges— View from the Mountain Tops- 
Table of Mountain Heights. - - - - 45 

CHAPTER VI.— MOUNTAIN PASSES. 
The Indian Pass— Other Mountain Passes. - - 58 

CHAPTER VII.— MOUNTAIN MEADOWS. 
The Softer Aspects of the Wilderness. - - - 62 

CHAPTER VIIL— THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE. 
Isaac Jogues— His Capture— His Escape— His Mission— His 
Death. ------- 66 



VI. CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX.— LAKES OF THE WILDERNESS. 

Their Rocky Beds — The Lake Belt — Table of Altitudes of 
Lakes and Forest Stations. . . . . 8o 

CHAPTER X.— THE NAMING OF THE CHAZY RIVER. 
The Death of Young Chazy — Tracy's Expedition to the 

Mohawk Country in 1666. .... 88 

CHAPTER XL— RIVERS OF THE WILDERNESS. 
The Hudson and its Forest Branches — Other Rivers. - 94 

CHAPTER XII.— LA FAMINE AND THE LESSER 
WILDERNESS. 

The Original Birth Place of the Iroquois — Council of De 
Barre — Visit and Letter of Father Charlevoix. - 102 

CHAPTER XIIL— TRYON COUNTY. 
Sir William Johnson — The Palatines. . . . 116 

CHAPTER XIV.— THE MANOR OF WILLSBORO. 
French Seigneuries — William Gilliland. - - - 128 

CHAPTER XV.— NORTH ELBA. 
An Indian Village — The Plains of Abraham— John Brown 

OF Ossawottamie. ..... 135 

CHAPTER XVI.— THE ADIRONDACK VILLAGE. 

Its Situation — The Indian Sabelle — David Henderson. 141 

CHAPTER XVIL— VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND. 
His Boyhood's Dreams. — His Journeyings — His Works — His 
Ideal. ..--.-. 145 

CHAPTER XVIIL— CASTORLAND. 
The Railroad Station — Ancient Castorland — Scheme of 
Settlement — Organization— Desjardines and Pharoux. 152 



CONTENTS. VII. 

CHAPTER XIX.— SISTERSFIELD. 
Saint Michel and his Daughier — Their Flight from Paris. i66 

CHAPTER XX.— JOHN BROWN'S TRACT. 
John Brown of Providence — The Herreshoff Manor — Ar- 
nold's. - - - - - - - 171 

CHAPTER XXI.— THE HUNTER FOSTER AND THE 
INDIAN DRID. 

Nathaniel Foster — Drid — Killing of Drid and Trial of 
Foster. ---.-.. 177 

CHAPTER XXII.— SMITH'S LAKE. 
David Smith — His Hermitage. . . . . 1S3 

CHAPTER XXIII.— NUMBER FOUR. 
Beaver Lake — Early Settlement— Or rin Fenton. - 187 

CHAPTER XXIV.— JAMES O'KANE. 
Stillwater — Hermitage — Death and Burial of O'Kane. ig2 

CHAPTER XXV.— JAMES T. WATSON. 
Macomb's Purchase — William Constakle — Watson's Pur- 
chase. .-...-- ig6 

CHAPTER XXVL— LAKE BONAPARTE. 
Its Situation —Count de Chaumont — Diana — Joseph Bona- 
parte. .-.--.- 200 

CHAPTER XXVIL— THE LEGEND OF THE DIAMOND 
ROCK. 

Lansingburgh — The Diamond Rock — The Tears of the Dy- 
ing Deer — The Old Indian's Story of Moneta. - 206 

CHAPTER XXVIII.— THE TWO WATER WHEELS. 
Lowville — Joseph Dunklee, the Dreamer — The City of 
Troy — Burden, the Worker. - - - - 221 



VIII. CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXIX.— THE STORY OF TOM GARNET'S 
DREAM. 

The Thousand Isles— Tom Garnet's Narrative. - - 237 

CHAPTER XXX.— THE ST. LAWRENCE OF THE 
OLDEN TIME. 

The River of the Thousand Isles — The Birth Night of 

Montreal— Carleton Island— La Presentation. - 250 

CHAPTER XXXL— THE COUNTY OF CHARLOTTE. 
Fort Edward — Skenesborough — The New Argyleshire. 263 

CHAPTER XXXIL— OSWEGO AND THE WESTERN 
WAR-PATH. 

Swa-geh — Forts along the Western War-Trail. - 275 

CHAPTER XXXIII.— SARATOGA AND THE NORTHERN 
WAR-PATH. 

Indian Saratoga — Kay-ad-ros-se-ra — The War of 1686 — The 
War of 1690— The War of 1755 — Burgoyne's Campaign 
of 1777— Small Beginnings of Modern Saratoga. - 282 

INDEX. 313 



NORTHERN NEW YORK 

AND ITS 

GREAT WILDERNESS. 



CHAPTER I. 

NORTHERN NEW YORK, 

Land of the forest and the rock ; 
Of dark blue lake and mighty river ; 
Of mountains rear'd aloft to mock 
The storm's career, the lightning's shock — 
My own green land forever. 

— Whiitier. 

I. 
ITS ATTRACTIVENESS. 

Northern New York, although it has within it, and along 
its borders, ten populous cities,* and villages without num- 
ber, is still mostly covered by its primeval forests. Of a 
truth, it may be said to be a vast vvilderness, surrounded by 
a narrow fringe of settlements. 

And although in great part a gloomy solitude which is 
seldom trodden by the foot of man, yet it is completely 
surrounded by the world's great routes of travel, over 
which the business and the pleasure of half the continent 
yearly pass under the very shadows of its aboriginal woods. 

Northern New York not only has a Great Wilderness 

within its borders, but it has also within it a Lesser Wilder- 

* Albany, Troy, Cohoes, Schenectady, Utica, Rome, Syracuse, Oswego, 
Watertown, Ogdensburgh. 
2 



lO NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

ness.* The Lesser Wilderness would itself be a famous one, 
were it not lost sight of in the overshadowing grandeur of 
the Greater. 

Northern New York abounds in grand, beautiful and 
picturesque scenery, unsurpassed anywhere. It teems with 
undeveloped mineral wealth and forest products. It has 
been for centuries the theatre of stirring events — the path- 
way of contending armies — tlie battle-ground of nations. 
It is therefore rich in historic incident and legendary lore. 
In a word, it is one of the most attractive and interesting 
parts of our country. 



II. 

ITS ANCIENT NAMES. 

As long ago as the year 1570, xA.braham Van Ortelius was 
the distinguished geographer of Philip II. of Spain. In 
that year Ortelius published his "Universal Geography." It 
was a work of such rare merit that it won tor him the title 
of " The Ptolemy of his Age." In this work was a map of 
New France. 

As then known to Europeans, New France comprised al- 
most all that had been discovered of North America. 

In this map New France was divided into nine provinces. 
What is now known as Labrador was called Terra Corter- 
ealis. The district which lies between Labrador and the 
Saguenay River was named Sagucuai. The country along 
the St. Lawrence between the Saguenay and the Ottawa 

* The Lesser Wilderness lies at the head waters of the Mohawk river, 
on the highlands that rise northerly of Oneida Lake, and between the 
eastern shore of Lake Ontario and the upper valley of the Black river. 



NORTHERN NEW YORK. l I 

Ri\er was called Ca/iada* Thi; region above the Ottawa, 
and in the angle between it and the St. Lawrence, was called 
Chilai:;a (Hochelaga). The territory south of the St. Law- 
rence which now embraces Maine and Nova Scotia was 
named Noriojibcga. The country which lies to the south 
of the St. Lawrence and east of the river Richelieu was called 
Moscosa. The region lying south and west of Moscosa, 
embracing what is now Northern New York, was called 
Avacal. The territory out of which Virginia and the 
great middle states have since been formed was named 
Apalachoi, while the whole great region from which the 
(rulf states were formed was called Florida, "the land of 
flowers." 

By this it seems that the earliest name applied by Euro- 
peans to the region now known as Northern New York was 
Avacal. 

On later maps the country lying on both sides of Lake 
Champlain is called Ir-o-coi-sia, "the hereditary country of 
the Iroquois." 

This last name, it seems, was also given to this region at 
a very early day, as it appears on a map of the New Nether- 
lands of the year 1616, lately found in the royal archives 
at The Hague. 

III. , 

IT IS AN ISLAND. 

The region which is covered by the Great Wilderness of 

Northern New York is a vast elevated plateau that rises 

into lofty mountain peaks in the interior, but which slopes 

* Canada is an Indian name signifying a mass of huts. See Chateau- 
briand's Travels. 



I 2 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

gradually down on every side into deep depressions or 
valleys. 

In these deep valleys run the natural water-courses which 
almost entirely surround Northern New York, making of it 
an island, as will appear upon an examination of its bound- 
aries. 

On the north of it flows the great river St. Lawrence. To 
the east of it is the Hudson River, running southerly into 
the Atlantic ocean, and the waters of Lake Champlain and 
its tributaries flowing northerly through the river Richelieu 
into the St. Lawrence. On the south of it the Mohawk 
River runs easterly into the Hudson ; while the waters of 
the Oneida Lake run westerly through the Oswego River 
into Lake Ontario. On the west is Lake Ontario, from 
which runs the St. Lawrence, completing the encircling 
chain of almost a thousand miles of living waters. 

The Indian could paddle his canoe around it finding but 
two short carrying places. One was from the Hudson at 
Fort Edward to the Wood Creek that runs into Lake 
Champlain ; another was from the Mohawk at Fort Stanwix 
to the other Wood Creek that runs into the Oneida Lake. 
These obstacles were long since overcome by artificial 
means, and Northern New York is now entirely surrounded 
by navigable waters. 

IV. 

THE HIGHWAYS OF NATIONS. 

The remarkable depressions or valleys which surround 
Northern New York, and through which run its natural and 
artificial watercourses, have always been great routes of 
travel. 



NORTHERN NEW YORK. I 3 

Through them first ran the old Indian trails.* After the 
white man came, for more than two hundred years they 
formed the pathways of armies. When the long wars were 
ended, these routes were thronged with hardy pioneers on 
their way to the great West ; and now the products of the 
West, the commerce of the world, come back through these 
thoroughfares. 

And after sixty years of smiling peace other armies travel 
through them, armies of summer tourists, in search of 
health or pleasure on their way to Saratoga, the Adiron- 
dacks. Lake George, the Thousand Islands, the gloomy 
Saguenay, Sharon, Richfield, Trenton Falls, Clifton, Avon, 
Massena, Niagara, the great lakes, and the prairies beyond, 
lit a word, to the thousand attractions which lie in and 
around Northern New York. 

* The Indian trails were well-worn paths of a foot or more in width, 
and sometimes a foot in depth. .See Morgan's League of the Iroquois. 



CHAPTER II. 

HO-DE-NO-SAU-NEE-GA. 

" Or shall we cross yon mountains blue, 

Whose streams my kindred nation quaff 'd ? 
And by my side, in battle true, 

A thousand warriors drew the shaft ? 
Ah ! there in desolation cold, 
, The desert serpent dwells alone, 

Where grass o'ergrows each mould'ring bone. 
And stones themselves to ruin grown 
Like me, are death-like old. 
Then seek we not their camp, — for there — 
The silence dwells of my despair !" 

— Campbeir s Gertricde of Wyoming. 

I. 

THE HO-DE-NO-SAU-NEE. » 

At the time of its first exploration by Europeans in the 
early years of the seventeenth century, Northern New York 
formed a part of the territory and hunting grounds of the 
great Indian league or confederacy, called by the English 
the "Five Nations," by the French the "Iroquois," and by 
themselves the ^^ Ho-de-no-sau-nce^'' or the "People of the 
Long House." 

Their country, called by them Ho-de-no-sau-nee-ga* and 
extending from the Hudson to Lake Erie, from the St. 
Lawrence to the valleys of the Delaware, the Susquehanna 
and the Alleghany, embraced the whole of Central, of 
Northern, and large parts of Southern and Western New 
York. 

It was divided between the several nations by well defined 
boundary lines running north and south, which they called 
"lines of property." 

* See Morgan's League of the Iroquois. 



HO-DE-NO-SAU-NEE-GA. I 5 

The territory of Northern New York belonged principally 
to the Mohawks and the Oneidas, the Onondagas owning a 
narrow strip along the eastern shore of Lake Ontario. 

The line of property between the Mohawks and the 
Oneidas began on the St. Lawrence river, at the present 
town of Waddington, and running south, nearly coincident 
with the line between Lewis and Herkimer counties, struck 
the Mohawk river at Utica. 

The country lying to the east of this line of property, 
embracing what is now the greater jxirt of the Wilderness, 
formed a part of Ga-fic-a-ga-o-no-ga — the land of the Mo- 
hawks. The territory lying westerly of this line, including 
the fertile valley of the Black River, and the highlands of the 
Lesser Wilderness, which lies between the upper valley of 
the Black River and Lake Ontario, belonged to 0-na-yote- 
ka-o-no-ga, the country of the Oneidas. 

It was the custom of the Lidians, whenever the hunting 
grounds of a nation bordered on a lake, to include the 
whole of it if possible, so the line of property between 
the Oneidas and Onondagas bent westerly around the Oneida 
Lake, giving the whole of that to the Oneidas, and deflected 
easterly again around Lake Ontario in favor of the Onon- 
dagas. 

These three nations claimed the whole of the territory of 
Northern New York. But the northern part of the Great 
Wilderness was also claimed by the Adirondacks, a Canadian 
nation of Algon(]uin lineage, and, being disputed territory, 
was the "dark and bloody ground" of the old Indian tradi- 
tions, as it afterward became in the French and English 
colonial history. 



I 6 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

II. 

TWO FAMILIES OF NATIONS. 

The Indians who inhabited the Atlantic slope and the 
basin of the great lakes were divided into two great fami- 
lies of nations. These two great families were known as 
the Irocjuois and the Algonquin families.* They differed 
radically both in language and in lineage, as well as in many 
of their manners and customs. 

The principal nations of the Irociuois family were group- 
ed around the lower lakes. The Five Nations of Central 
New York — the Iroquois proper — were the leading people 
of this family. To the south of the Five Nations, on the 
banks of the Susquehanna, were the Andastes, and to the 
westward, along the southern shore of Lake Erie, were the 
Eries. To the north of Lake Erie lay the Neutral Nation 
and the Tobacco Nation, while the Hurons dwelt along the 
eastern shore of the lake that still bears their name. There 
was also a branch of the Iroquois family in the Carolinas — 
the Tuscaroras — who united with the Five Nations in 
1 7 15, after which the confederacy was known as the Six 
Nations. f 

Surrounding these few kindred bands of the Iroquois 
were the much more numerous tribes of the great Algon- 
quin family. 

To the people of Algonquin speech and lineage belonged 
the Horicons, the Mohicans and other tribes of River In- 
dians who dwelt along the Hudson, and the Pequots, 

* Parkman's Pioneers of France in the New World. 
f See Colden's Five Nations. 



HO-DE-NO-SAU-NEE-GA. 1 7 

Wampanoags, Narragansetts, and all the other New England 
tribes.* 

Northward of the Iroquois were the Nipissings, La 
Petite Nation, and La Nation de flsle, and the other 
tribes of the Ottawa. Along the valley of the St. Lawrence 
were the Algonquins proper — called Adirondacks by the 
Iroquois, the Abenaquis, the Montagnais, and other roving 
bands around and beyond the Saguenay. 

Thus were the Indian nations situated with respect to 
each other when Samuel de Champlain, in the early summer 
of 1609, entered the territory of Northern New York from 
the north, and Henry Hudson, in the beginning of the 
coming autumn, approached it from the south. 



III. 

THE "people of THE LONG HOUSE." 

Among all the Indians of the New World, there were 
none so politic and intelligent, none so fierce and brave, 
none with so many germs of heroic virtues mingled with 
their savage vices, as the true Iroquois — the people of the 
Five Nations. They were a terror to all the surrounding 
tribes, whether of their own or of Algonquin speech. In 
1650 they overran the country oflhe Hurons ; in 1651 they 
destroyed the Neutral Nation ; in 1652 they exterminated 
the Eries ; in 1672 they conquered the Andastes and reduc- 
ed them to the most abject submission. They followed the 

* After the defeat of King Philip of Pocanokett in 1675-6, a part of 
the Wampanoags and Narragansetts fled from their ancient hunting 
grounds, and settled at Schaghticoke, on the Hudson, and were after- 
ward known as the Schaghticoke Indians. See paper by John Fitch in 
His. Mag. for June, 1870. 
3 



l8 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

war-path, and their war-cry was heard westward to the 
Mississippi, and southward to the great gulf. The New 
England nations, as well as the River tribes along the Hud- 
son, whose warriors trembled at the name of Mohawk, all 
paid them tribute. The poor Montagnais on the far-off 
Saguenay would start from their midnight sleep, and run 
terror-stricken from their wigwams into the forest when 
dreaming of the dreadful Iroquois. They were truly the 
conquerors of the New World, and were justly styled "The 
Romans of the West." "My pen," wrote the Jesuit Father 
Ragueneau in 1650, in his Relations des Hurons, "My pen 
has no ink black enough to describe the fury of the Iro- 
quois." 

They dwelt in palisaded villages upon the fertile banks 
of the lakes and streams that watered their country. Their 
villages were surrounded with rudely cultivated fields, in 
which they raised an abundance of corn, beans, squashes 
and tobacco. Their houses were built within the protecting 
circle of palisades, and, like all the tribes of the Iroquois 
family, were made long and narrow. They were not more 
than twelve or fifteen feet in width, but often exceeded a 
hundred and fifty feet in length. They were made of two 
parallel rows of poles stuck upright in the ground sufificient- 
ly wide apart at the bottom to form the floor, and bent 
together at the top to form the roof, the whole being nicely 
covered with strips of peeled bark. At each end of the 
wigwam was a strip of bark, or a bear skin, hung loosely for 
a door. Within, they built their fires at intervals along the 
center of the floor, the smoke passing out through openings 
in the top, which served as well to let in the light. In every 



HO-DE-NO-SAU-NEE-GA. 1 9 

house were many fires and many families, every family 
having its own fire witliin the space allotted to it. 

From this custom of- having many fires and many fami- 
lies strung through a long and narrow house comes the 
signification of their name for the league, "The People 
of the Long House." They likened their confederacy of 
five nations, stretched along a narrow valley for more than 
two hundred miles through Central New York, to one of 
their long wigwams. The Mohawks guarded the eastern 
door of this long house, while the Senecas kept watch at 
the western door. Between these doors of their country 
dwelt the Oneidas, Onondagas and Cayugas, each nation 
around its own fire, while the great central council fire was 
always kept brightly burning in the country of the Onon- 
dagas. Thus they were in fact as well as in name the 
people of the long house. 

Below are given in the order of their rank therein, the 
Indian names of the several nations of the league.* 

Mohawks — Ga-ne-a-ga-o-7io. "People Possessors of the 
Flint." 

Onondagas — 0-nun-do-ga-o-no. "People on the Hills." 
Senecas — NuJi-da-wa-o-no. "Great Hill People." 
Oneidas — O-na-yote-ka-o-no. "Granite People." 
Cayugas — Gwe-u-gweh-o-no. "People at the Mucky 
Land." 

Tuscaroras — Dus-ga-o-weh-o-no. "Shirt Wearing People." 

* See Morgan's League of the Iroquois. 



v 



20 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

IV. 

THEIR GOVERNMENT. 

It may of a truth be said that this wild Indian league of 
the old savage wilderness, if it did not suggest, in many 
respects it formed the model after which was fashioned our 
more perfect union of many states in one republic. 

The government of this "League of the Iroquois" was 
vested in a general council composed of fifty hereditary 
sachems, but the order of succession was always in the female 
and never in the male line. That is to say, when a sachem 
died his successor was chosen from his mother's descend- 
ants, and never from his own children. The new sachem 
must be either the brother of the old one or a son of his 
sister — so in all cases the status of the children followed 
the mother and never the father. Each nation was divided 
into eight clans or tribes, which bore the following names : 
Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Turtle, 

Deer, Snipe, Heron, Hawk. 

The spirit of the animal or bird after which the clan was 
named, called its To-teni, was the guardian spirit of the 
clan, and every member used its figure in his signature as 
his device. 

It was the rule among them that no two of the same 
clan could intermarry. If the husband belonged to the 
clan of the Wolf, the wife must belong to the clan of the 
Bear, the Deer, and so on, while the children belonged to 
the clan of the mother, and never to the father's clan. In 
this manner their relationship always interlocked, and the 
people of the whole league were forever joined in the 
closest ties of consanguinity. 



HO-DE-NO-SAU-NEE-GA. 2 1 

The name of each sachemship was permanent. It was 
the name of the office, and descended with it to each suc- 
cessor. When a sachem died the people of the league 
selected the most competent brave from among those of his 
family who by right inherited the title, and the one so 
chosen, was raised in solemn council to the high honor, and 
dropping his own received the name of the sachemship. 
There were two sachemships, however, that after the death 
of the first sachems of the name, forever remained vacant. 
These sachemships were Da-ga-no-we-da of the Onondagas 
and Ha-yo-weut-Jui {Hi-a-wat-Zia) of the Mohawks. Da- 
ga-no-we-da was the founder of the league. His head was 
represented as covered with tangled serpents, and Hi-a- 
wat-ha (meaning "he who combs") straightened them out, 
and assisted in forming the league. In honor of their great 
services their sachemships were afterward held vacant. 

There was another class of chiefs of inferior rank to the 
sachems, among whom were the war chiefs whose title was not 
hereditary, but who were chosen on account of their bravery 
and personal prowess, their achievements on the war-])ath, 
or their eloquence in council. Among this latter class were 
found the most renowned warriors and orators of the league, 
such as King Hendrick and Red Jacket, but they could 
never rise to the rank of sachem. 

The whole body of sachems formed the council league. 
Their authority was entirely civil, and confined to the affairs 
of peace. But after all, the power of the sachems and 
chiefs was advisory rather than mandatory. Every savage 
to a great extent followed the dictates of his own wild will, 
controlled only by the customs of his people and a public 



22 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

sentiment that ran through their whole system of affairs, 
which was as inflexible as iron, 



V. 

THEIR FESTIVALS AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 

The Indian was a believer in spirits. Every object in 
nature was spiritualized by him, while over all things in dim 
and shadowy majesty, ruled the one Great Spirit, the su- 
preme object of his fear and adoration, whom he called 
Ha-wen-ne-ya. There was likewise an Evil Spirit, born at 
the same time with the Great Spirit, which he called Ha-ne- 
go-ate-ga — "The Evil-Minded. " There was also He-no, 
"The Thunderer," and Ga-o/i, the "Spirit of the Winds." 
Every mountain, lake, stream, tree, shrub, flower, stone and 
fountain had its own spirit. 

Among his objects of worship were the Three Sister 
Spirits — the Spirit of Corn, the Spirit of Beans, and the 
Spirit of Squashes.* This triad was called £)c-o/ia-ko, 
meaning "Our Life," "Our Supporters." Upon the testal 
days sacred to the Three Sisters they were represented by 
three beautiful maidens, each one gaily dressed in the leaves 
of the plant whose spirit she represented. 

The Ho-de-no-sau-nee observed five great feasts every 
year. There was the New Year's Festival, or the "Sacrifice 
of the White Dog," which was celebrated with great pomp 
for seven days early in February. Then as soon as the snow 
began to melt, and the sap to flow from the maple trees, 
and the sugar boiling began in earnest, came the Maple 
feast. The next great festival was the A-yent-wa-ta or 

* See Morgan's League of the Iroquois. 



HO-DE-NO-SAU-NEE-GA. 23 

Planting festival, which came on as soon as the leaves on 
the butter-nut trees were as big as squirrels' ears, indicat 
ing the time for planting corn. The third feast was Ha- 
nan-da-yo, the Feast of Strawberries, which came in the 
moon of roses. The fourth was Ah-dake-wa-o, the Feast 
of the Green Corn Moon, and the last was the Harvest 
Festival, observed at the gathering of the crops in autumn. 

Dwelling forever among the wildest scenes of nature, 
himself nature's own wildest child, believing in an unseen 
world of spirits, in perpetual play around him on every 
hand, his soul was filled with unutterable awe. The flight 
or cry of a bird, the humming of a bee, the crawling of an 
insect, the turning of a leaf, the whisper of a breeze, were 
to him mystic signals of good or evil import, by which he 
was guided in the most important affairs of life. 

The mysterious realm about him he did not attempt to 
unravel, but bowed submissively before it with what crude 
ideas he had of religion and worship. To his mind every- 
thing, whether animate or inanimate, in the whole domain 
of nature, is immortal. In the happy hunting grounds of 
the dead, the shades of hunters will follow the shades of 
animals with the shades of bows and arrows, among the 
shades of trees and rocks, in the shades of immortal for- 
ests, or glide in the shades of bark canoes over shadowy 
lakes and streams, and carry them around the shades of 
dashing waterfalls.* 

In dreams he placed the most implicit confidence. They 
were to him revelations from the spirit world, guiding him 
to the places where his game lurked and to the haunts of 
his enemies. He invoked their aid upon all occasions. 

* See Charlevoix's Voyage to North America. 



\J 



24 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

They taught him how to cure the sick and revealed to him 
his guardian spirit, as well as all the secrets of his good or 
evil destiny. 

VI. 

THEIR SOCIAL LIFE. 

The Iroquois were extremely social in their daily inter- 
course. When not engaged in their almost continual pub- 
lic feasting and dancing, they spent the most of their time 
in their neighbors' wigwams, playing games of chance, of 
which they were extremely fond, or in chatting, joking and 
rudely bantering each other. On such occasions their wit- 
ticisms and jokes were often more sharp than delicate, as 
they were "echoed by the shrill laugh of young squaws un- 
taught to blush."* 

In times of distress and danger they were always prompt 
to aid each other. Were a family without shelter, the men 
of the village at once built them a wigwam When a young 
squaw was married, the older ones, each gathering a load 
of sticks in the forest, carried her wood enough for a year. 
In their intercourse with each other, as well as with stran- 
gers, their code of courtesy was exact and rigid to the last 
degree. 

But the Indian is still the untamed child of nature. 
" He will not," says Parkman, " learn the arts of civiliza- 
tion, and he and his forest must perish together. The 
stern unchanging features of his mind excite our admira- 
tion from their very immutability ; and we look with deep 
interest on the fate of this irreclaimable son of the wilder- 

* Francis Parkman. 



HO-DE-NO-SAU-NEE-GA. 25 

ness, the child who will not be weaned from the l)reast of 
his rugged mother. * * The imprisoned lion in 

the showman's cage differs not more widely from the lord 
of the desert than the beggarly frequenter of frontier gar- 
risons and dramshops differs from the proud denizens of 
the woods. It is in his native wilds alone that the Indian 
must be seen and studied."* 

*Parknian's Conspiracy of Pontiac, vol. I, p. 44. Consult also School- 
craft's Works, Clark's History of Onondaga, Heckewelder's History of 
Indian Nations, The Iroquois, by Miss Anna C. Johnson, Documentary 
History of New York, Cusick's History of the Five Nations, Charle- 
voix's Letters to the Duchess de Lesdigui^res, and Jesuit Relations of 
1656-57, and 1659-60. 



CHAPTER III. 

EARLY EXPLORERS. 

Westward the course of empire takes its way ; 

The four first acts already past, 
A fifth shall close the drama with the day ; 

Time's noblest offspring is the last. 

— Bishop Berkeley. 

I. 

JACQUES CARTIER. 

The great River St. Lawrence, which serves to drain the 
larger part of the waters of Northern New York into the 
ocean, was discovered and first explored by Jacques Cartier, 
an eminent mariner of St. Malo. 

St. Malo is a quaint medieval seaport town of the ancient 
province of Brittany, on the northern coast of France. 
The city is built on a huge rock that seems to rise like a 
wall out of the sea, it being separated from the mainland 
by a salt marsh, which is covered by the waters at high 
tide. St. Malo has long being celebrated as the nursery of 
a race of daring and hardy navigators, and among the most 
famous of them all is Jacques Cartier. He was born at St. 
Malo in the year 1494, and passed his boyhood there in 
watching the waves come in from the awful unknown At- 
lantic, whose mysteries had then but just been solved by 
Columbus, and of which he was destined to become one of 
the most eminent explorers. 

In the year 1535, Cartier was sent on a voyage to the 
New World by Francis I, King of France, at the instiga- 
tion of Philippe de Chabot, his Grand Admiral, in quest of 
gold and empire. The little fleet with which Cartier sailed 



EARLY EXPLORERS. 27 

consisted of three ships only, ranging from forty to one 
hundred and twenty tons burden. This fleet was under the 
command of Cartier, who was styled the "Captain and 
Pilot of the King." In his ship's company were several of 
the young nobility of France, among whom were Claudias 
de Ponte Briand, cup-bearer to the Lord Dauphin, Charles 
de Pomeraces, John Powlet and other gentlemen. 

Before venturing upon their long and perilous voyages to 
the dreary, cheerless solitudes of an almost unknown and 
unexplored ocean, the daring but devout navigators of 
those days were accustomed to attend upon the solemn 
offices of religion as if they were departing to 

" The undiscovered country, from whose bourne 
No traveler returns." 

So, just before setting sail, this company of adventurers all 
went, on Whitsunday, in solemn procession to the Cathedral 
Church of St. Malo, where each was absolved and received 
the sacrament. Then, all entering the choir of the church, 
they presented themselves in a body to the Lord Bishop of 
St. Malo, and received his blessing. 

They embarked on the 19th of May, and, after a stormy 
passage, arrived off the coast of Newfoundland on the 7th 
of July. On the loth day of August in that year, which 
day was the festival of Saint Lawrence, they discovered and 
entered the broad bay which forms the mouth of the great 
river, and named it in honor of the saint. 

Proceeding on their voyage up the wild stream, they 
passed the dark gorge of the Saguenai, and arrived at the 
island of Orleans, that lies a short distance below the city 
of Quebec. On account of the abundance of wild grapes 
found upon this island, which hung in clusters from all the 



28 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

trees along its shores, Cartier named it the Isle of Bacchus. 
Continuing his voyage, Cartier soon reached the narrows 
in the river opposite the rocky cliffs of Quebec. This 
stronghold was then occupied by a little cluster of Indian 
wigwams, and was called by the savages Sta-da-co-7ie. Its 
chief, whose name was Don-na-co-na, met Cartier and his 
strange band at the landing, made a speech to them, and 
gave them some bread and some wine pressed from the wild 
grapes that grew so abundantly along the shores of the 
river and upon all its islands. 

These Indians told Cartier that many days' journey up 
the river, there was another Indian town that gave its name 
to the river and to the country around it. Taking on 
board some Indian guides, Cartier proceeded up the river 
in quest of this wonderful city of the great forest state. 
Upon arriving at some dangerous rapids in the now narrow- 
ing river, Cartier left his ships, and launching his small 
boats, went up the stream with but two white companions 
and his Indian guides. In a few days they led him to the 
spot where now stands the beautiful city of Montreal. 

On the island of Montreal Cartier found an old palisaded 
Indian town, containing many wigwams, built long and 
narrow after the fashion of the Iroquois. In this village 
were more than a thousand savage inhabitants of Iro- 
quois lineage. It was the famous Indian Ho-che-Ia-ga, 
the capital of the great forest state that lay along the St. 
Lawrence above the Ottawa. Like Sta-da-co-ne at Quebec, 
it was one of the centers of Indian population on the great 
river. 

Cartier landed at Ho-che-la-ga on the second day of Octo- 
ber, amid the crimson and golden hues of the lovely Cana- 



EARLY EXPLORERS. 29 

dian autumn. So glorious, so wild, so fair, so savage 
a scene these wondering mariners of the Old World had 
never seen before. 

When Cartier and his two bearded white men, clad in glit- 
tering armor and gorgeous attire, landed at the Indian village 
Ho-che-la-ga, on the wild island of Montreal, the half-nude 
savages crowded around them in speechless wonder, regard- 
ing them more as demi-gods than men. They even brought 
their chief, whose name was Ag-ou-haii-na, who "was full 
of palsy" says an old narrative, "and his members shrunk 
together," and who was clad in rich furs and wore upon his 
head a wreath or crown of red feathers, and laid him upon 
a mat before the captain that he might give the useless 
limbs a healing touch — such was their simple faith in the 
power of the strange pale faces. "Then did Ag-ou-/ian-na," 
continues the old chronicler, "take the wreath or crown he 
had about his head, and gave it unto our captain. That 
done, they brought before him divers diseased men, some 
blind, some cripple, some lame and impotent, and some so 
old that the hair of their eye-lids came down and covered 
their cheeks, and laid them all along before our captain, to 
the end that they might of him be touched, for it seemed 
unto them that God was descended and come down to heal 
them."* 

Then the Indians led Cartier to the top of the mountain 
at whose foot their village nestled. Planting a large cross 
of cedar wood upon the summit of the mountain, Cartier 
solemnly took possession of the great forest state of Ho-che- 
la-ga in the name of the French king, and named the 

* Pinkerton's Voyages, vol. xii, p. 653. 



30 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

mountain on which he stood Mount Royal, from whence 
comes the modern Montreal. 

On the 5th of October, Cartier left Ho-c/te-la-ga, and re- 
gaining his ships, passed along and gloomy winter in that 
part of the river called Lake St. Peters. 

In the spring Cartier returned to France. In 1541 he 
made another voyage to Ho-cJic-la-ga. After his return to 
his native city of St. Malo from his last voyage to the New 
World his name passes out of history. It is supposed that 
he lived in retirement and died at a good old age. 

When Champlain, ui)on his first voyage in 1603, si.xty- 
eight years after Cartier's visit, landed upon the still wild 
and savage island of Montreal, scarcely a vestige of Ho-che- 
la-ga, the ancient Indian metropolis on the great river, re- 
mained to be seen. All its savage glory had departed for- 
ever. Its Iroquois race of house-builders had been driven 
to their new hunting-grounds in the rich valleys of Central 
New York. Champlain found the site of the village occu- 
pied only by a few families of a roving tribe of Algonquin 
lineage, who lived in some temporary huts built of the decay- 
ing remnants of the ancient village. Such was the fate of 
the old forest state Ho-che-la-ga, and its metropolis at 
Montreal. But its people found a more congenial home 
among their sister Iroquois tribes of the Five Nations, with 
whom doubtless they united in the great confederacy. 



II. 

SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN. 

Samuel de Champlain, the discoverer of the beautiful 
lake of Northern New York that bears his name, was the 



I 



EARLY EXPLORERS. 3 I 

founder of New France, and its first Governor General. 
No name in Canadian annals is more illustrious than his. 
He was born in Brouage Saintonge, about the year 1570, of 
a noble family. In his youth he served in the French navy, 
was pensioned and attached to the person of Henry IV of 
France. 

In 1603, M. de Chastes, Governor of Dieppe, obtained 
permission from the king to found a settlement in North 
America. De Chastes appointed Champlain as his substi- 
tute, and Henry gave him the title of General Lieu- 
tenant of Canada. On the 15th of March Champlain set 
sail for America in a shij) commanded by Pont-Grav^, an 
enterprising mariner of St. Malo. 

They sailed up the St. Lawrence to the Sault St. Louis, 
being as far as Jacques Cartier had proceeded with his 
ships in 1535, and after carefully examining its banks, re- 
turned to France. 

Upon his return, Champlain published his first work, 
entitled Dcs Sauvages. In the meantime De Chastes had 
died, and his concessions had been transferred to Sieur de 
Monts. De Monts was made Vice-Admiral and Lieutenant 
General of his majesty in that part of Acadia called Noruiit- 
bega, with full powers to make war and peace, and to trade 
in peltries from lat. 40 to 46 N., in exclusion of all others. 
Armed with these plenary powers, De Monts and Cham- 
plain sailed for Acadia, and attempted a settlement at Port 
Royal, but returned to France in 1607. 

Champlain's third voyage to America was undertaken at 
the solicitation of De Monts in the year 1608. In this 
year he founded his colony of Quebec, in the heart of the 
old, wild, savage wilderness, upon the site of the old Indian 



32 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

hamlet Sta-da-cone, found by Jacques Cartier seventy years 
before, under the sway of the royal chief Don-na-co-na. 

In the beginning of the summer of the next year, (1609) 
months before Henry Hudson sailed up the North River, 
and eleven years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, 
Champlain discovered and explored the lake which still 
bears his name, and planted on its shores the Cross and the 
Lilies of France. 

At Quebec, during his hunting excursions with the In- 
dians, while sitting around their wild camp fires, they had 
told him marvelous stories of a great inland sea filled with 
wonderful islands, lying far to the southward of the St. 
Lawrence, in the land of the terrible Iroquois. His curios- 
ity was excited, and as soon as the melting snows of the 
next spring would permit, he set out upon a voyage for its 
discovery. 

He was accompanied by two companions only besides 
his savage allies, who numbered sixty warriors, with twenty- 
four canoes. They were Hurons, Algonquins and Mon- 
tagnais. The Montagnais were a roving tribe of the Al- 
gonquin family who inhabited the country of the Saguenay, 
called by the French the paupers of the wilderness. 

After a toilsome passage up the rapids of the Richelieu, 
Champlain entered the lake — the far-famed " wilderness 
sea of the Iroquois." It was studded with islands that were 
clothed in the rich verdure of the early summer ; its tran- 
quil waters spreading southward beyond the horizon. From 
the thickly wooded shores on either side rose ranges of 
mountains, the highest peaks still white with patches of 
snow. Over all was flung the soft blue haze, sometimes 
called mountain smoke, that seemed to temper the sunlight 



EARLY EXPLORERS. ^^ 

and shade off the landscape into spectral-like forms of 
shadowy beauty. Who does not envy the stern old forest 
ranger his first view of the lake that was destined to bear 
his name to the latest posterity .' 

Champlain and his allies proceeded cautiously up the 
lake, traveling only by night and resting on the shore by 
day, for they were in the land of the much dreaded Iro- 
quois, the hereditary enemies of the Algonquin nations. 

On the morning of the 29th of July, after paddling, as 
usual, all night, they retired to the western shore of the 
lake to take their daily rest. The savages were soon 
stretched along the ground in their slumbers, and Cham- 
plain, after a short walk in the woods, laid himself down to 
sleep upon his bed of fragrant hemlock boughs. He 
dreamed that he saw a band of Iroquois warriors drowning 
in the lake. Upon attempting to save them, his Algonquin 
friends told him that "they were good for nothing, and had 
better be left to die like dogs." Upon awakening, the In- 
dians, as usual, beset him for his dreams. This was the 
first dream he had remembered since setting out upon the 
voyage, and it was considered by his superstitious allies as 
an auspicious vision. Its relation filled them with joy, and 
at early nightfall they re-embarked flushed with the hope of 
an easy victory. Their anticipations were soon to be real- 
ized. About ten o'clock in the evening, near what is now 
Crown Point, they saw dark moving objects upon the lake 
before them. It was a flotilla of Iroquois canoes. In a 
moment more each party of savages saw the other, and 
their hideous war cries, mingling, pealed along the lonely 
shores. 

The Iroquois landed at once, and barricaded themselves 
5 



34 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

upon the shore with fallen trees and brush-wood. The 
Algonquins lashed their canoes together with long poles 
within a bow-shot of the Iroquois barricade, and danced 
in them all night their hideous war dances. It was mutual- 
ly agreed between the hostile bands that the battle should 
not come off till the morning. At the dawn of day the 
Algonquins landed, and the Iroquois marched, in single 
file, from their barricade to meet them, full two hundred 
strong. They were the boldest, fiercest warriors of the 
New World, and their tall, lithe forms and noble bearing 
elicited the warmest admiration of Champlain and his 
white companions. The chiefs were made conspicuous by 
their tall plumes. Champlain, who, in the meantime, had 
been concealed, now advanced to the front, with arquebuse 
in hand, clad in the metallic armor of the times. The 
Iroc|uois warriors, seeing for the first time such a warlike 
apparition in their path, halted, and stood gazing upon 
Champlain in mute astonishment. Champlain levelled his 
arquebuse and fired. One Iroquois chief fell dead, and 
another rolled lifeless into the bushes at his feet. Then 
there rose an exulting yell from the Algonquin allies, and 
clouds of feathery arrows whizzed through the air. But 
the bold Iroquois, panic-stricken at the strange appearance 
of a white man clad in glittering armor, and sending forth 
from his weapons fire, smoke, thunderings and leaden hail, 
soon broke and fled in uncontrollable terror toward their 
homes on the Mohawk, leaving everything behind them. 

The Iroquois afterward became the friends and allies of 
the English, and this first forest encounter was the fore- 
runner of a long and bloody warfare between the French 
and the English, and their respective Indian allies, of 



EARLY EXPLORERS. 35 

which the soil of Northern New York often formed the 
battle ground. 

Four years afterward Champlain made a long journey up 
the Ottawa River to the country of the Hurons. On his 
return he discovered Lake Ontario, the name meaning in 
the Indian tongue, the "Beautiful Lake." He fought 
another battle with the Iroquois to the south of the lake in 
Western New York. He explored its shores along the 
western border of Northern New York, in the vicinity of 
what was afterward known to the French as La Famine. 
On his return he passed down the St. Lawrence to his 
colony at Quebec, thus becoming the first explorer of the 
Lake of the Thousand Isles. 

In 1620 Champlain was made Governor-General of 
Canada, and died at Quebec in 1635. In 1620 his wife ac- 
companied him to Quebec. Madame de Champlain,* as 
she was married to him when she was only twelve years 
of age, was still very young. The Indians, struck with her 
frail and gentle beauty, paid homage to her as a goddess. 
"Champlain," says Parkman, "was enamored of the New 
World, whose rugged charms had seized his fancy and his 
heart, and as explorers of the Arctic seas have pined in 
their repose for polar ice and snow, so did he, with restless 
longing, revert to the fog-wrapped coast, the piney odors of 
forests, the noise of waters, the sharp, piercing sun-light, 
so dear to his remembrance. Fain would he unveil the 
mystery of that boundless wilderness, and plant the Catholic 

* Madam de Champlain was Hel^ne Boute, daughter of Nicholas 
Boute, Secretary of the royal household at Paris. She remained four 
years in America, returned to France, founded a convent of Ursulines at 
Meaux, entered it as Sister Helen of St. Augustine, and died there in 
1654. 



36 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

faith and the power of France amid its ancient barbar- 



III. 

HENRY HUDSON. 

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the little 
Republic of Holland had already become one of the first 
commercial and maritime powers of the world. In those 
days hardy navigators and bold explorers were flocking 
from every nation in Europe to sail under the Dutch stand- 
ard in search of fame and fortune. 

Among the most noted of these was Henry Hudson, a 
mariner of England, who was the discoverer and first ex- 
plorer of the river that now bears his name. Henry Hud- 
son was born about the middle of the sixteenth century, 
but of his early life little is known. His first voyage was 
in 1607, in the employ of a company of London merchants, 
to the east coast of Greenland, in the search for a north- 
west passage to India. 

On the 6th of April, 1609, he began a voyage in the ser- 
vice of the Dutch East India Company, to the northern 
coast of Asia. For some reason or other he turned his 
ships toward North America, and on the twelfth day of 
September in that year, discovered and entered the mouth 
of the beautiful river now called by his name that serves to 
drain the waters of the mountain belt of the Great Wilder- 
ness of Northern New York. 

It is believed that Hudson explored the stream as far up 

* See Parkman's Pioneers of France, Palmer's History of Lake Cham- 
plain, Champlain's Voyages de la Nouv. France, and Documentary 
History of New York. 



EARLY EXPLORERS. ;^y 

as the old Indian hunting ground called Nach-te-nak^ which 
lies around and upon the islands that cluster among the 
" sprouts "* or mouths of the Mohawk. 

In his voyage up the stream he had numerous adventures 
and two or three battles with the Indians, who were jealous 
of the strange intruders. The staunch little ship in which 
he sailed up the river was named the Half-Moon. He 
named the stream the River of the Mountains, which is a 
literal translation of the Algonquin name of it, Ca-ho-ta-te-a. 
It was reserved for his countrymen, who took the province 
from the Dutch in 1664, first to call it in honor of its im- 
mortal discoverer. 

Hudson, a year or two afterward discovered the great 
northern bay, which was also named in his honor. His 
ship's crew then mutinied ; he was sent adrift with eight 
men in a small boat upon the wild northern ocean, and 
was never heard of more. 

From these explorations and discoveries by navigators 
sailing in the interests of rival powers, there sprang up con- 
flicting claims to the territory of Northern New York. Out 
of these claims arose a long series of bloody conflicts be- 
tween the French and the English and their respective 
Indian allies, of which the soil of Northern New York 
formed the battle ground, until the brave Montcalm yielded 
to the chivalrous Wolfe, one hundred and fifty years after- 
ward, on the plains of Abraham. 

Since these discoveries and explorations, two centuries 

* The Mohawk, just before it flows into the Hudson, separates into 
four spreading branches, which the early Dutch settlers significantly 
called Spruytes, which is from the Danish Spruiten or .Saxon Spryt/an, 
from which comes our English word Sprouts. — Vide Annals of Albany, 
vol. 2, page 226. 



38 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

and a half have passed away, and how manifold and vast 
are now the human interests that lie stretched along the 
lakes and rivers which are still linked with the names of 
those three kindred spirits of the olden time, "romance- 
loving explorers," each immortalized by his discoveries — 
Jacques Cartier, Henry Hudson, and Samuel de Champlain. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE GREAT WILDERNESS. 

Where the red deer leaps and the panther creeps, 
And the eagles scream over cliff and stream ; 
Where the lilies bow their heads of snow, 
And the hemlocks tall throw a shade o'er all. 

— Judson. 

I. 

COUCH-SACH-RA-GE. 

The gloomy solitudes of a great wilderness still cover the 
larger part of the territory of Northern New York. 

On Governor Pownal's map of the northern British 
colonies of 1776, across the region that comprises the wil- 
derness, is written the following inscription : 

This vast 
Tract of Land, 

WHICH IS THE AnTIENT 

couchsachrage, one of the four 

Beaver Hunting Countries 

OF THE Six Nations, 

is not yet 

Surveyed. 

So this great wilderness was the old Indian hunting 
ground, Couch-sach-ra-ge of the Iroquois, which, like the 
ocean and the desert, refuses to be subdued by man. 

But a more euphonious Indian name for the great wilder- 
ness, or rather for the mountainous or eastern part of it, has 
long usurped the place of its ancient but more significant 
title Couch-sach-ra-ge. This name is Adirondack. The 
Montagnais, those wild rovers of the country of the 
Saguenay, who subsisted entirely by the chase, were often 
during the long Canadian winters, when their game grew 



40 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

scarce, driven by hunger lo live for many weeks together 
upon the buds and bark, and sometimes even upon the 
wood of forest trees. This led their hereditary enemies, 
the more favored Mohawks, to call them, in mockery of 
their condition, Ad-l-ron-daks or tree-eaters* This Iroquois 
name of an Algonquin tribe, thus born in derision, was 
first given, it is said, by Prof. Emmons to the principal 
mountain chain of the wilderness, but it is now by common 
consent applied to the whole mountainous region of it. 

In the year 1798, John Brown of Providence, Rhode 
Island, bought a tract of two hundred and ten thousand 
acres, lying in the western part of the wilderness, and made 
upon it a fruitless attempt at settlement. The name John 
Brown's Tract, so often applied to the whole region, comes 
from this purchase. 

Can we not have some more appropriate name than either 
for the great wilderness, and is there one more full of wild 
significance than the old Indian Couck-sach-ra-ge? 

II. 

ITS GENERAL ASPECTS AND ITS IMPORTANT USES. 

A line beginning at Saratoga Springs, and running west- 
erly across the country to Trenton Falls, near Utica, on 
the Mohawk ; thence northerly to Potsdam, near Ogdens- 
burgh, on the St. Lawrence ; thence easterly to Dannemora, 
near Plattsburgh, on Lake Champlain, and thence southerly 
to the place of beginning, will nearly coincide with the 
boundaries of the wilderness. 

* On trouve aussi Adirondaks c'est-a-dire mangeurs d'arbres. Ce nom 
leur a ete donn6 par les Iroquois pour se moquer de leur jeune a la 
chasse. II a 6te transform^ plus tard en celui d' Algonquins. — Jesuit 
Relations. 



THE GREAT WILDERNESS. 4 1 

A few small settlements confined to the fertile valleys of 
the streams, lie within these boundaries, while in many 
jjlaces the ancient woods stretch down beyond them to the 
very shores of the surrounding lakes and rivers, and cast 
their shadows over the great routes of travel. 

The wilderness comprises greater or lesser parts of eleven 
counties of the state, and is quite the size of the whole 
state of New Jersey, or the state of Vermont or New 
Hampshire. To compare it with European countries, it is 
three-fourths as large as the kingdom of Holland or Bel- 
gium, or the republic of Switzerland, whose Alpine charac- 
ter it so much resembles. 

I'he Great Wilderness of Northern New York is an up- 
land region of a mean height of almost two thousand feet 
above the level of the sea. It is traversed by five distinct 
ranges of mountains, with well-defined intervening valleys. 
It contains within its borders more than a thousand lakes, 
and from its heights run numberless rivers and streams in 
every direction. Over it all is spread a primeval forest, 
"covering the land as the grass covers a garden lawn, 
sweeping over hill and hollow in endless undulation, bury- 
ing mountains in verdure, and mantling brooks and rivers 
from the light of day." In this forest there is only here 
and there a feeble settlement to break the monotony of its 
almost interminable sweep. 

This region has always been and will always be under the 
dominion of Nature. Its altitude renders its climate cold 
and forbidding, while its rugged surface and light soil ren- 
der it in a great measure unfit for cultivation. While the 
tide of emigration has rushed around it for almost a cen- 
tury, and filled the West with people for thousands of miles 
6 



42 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

beyond it, this region, although lying along the borders of 
some of the oldest settlements in the New World, may still 
be said to be 

* * "A waste land where no one comes, 
Or has come since the making of the world." 

But it is not without its important uses in the economies 
of the civilization that surrounds it, and which has tried in 
vain to subdue it. It is a vast reservoir of pure living 
waters. The state and city of New York, and the cities and 
villages that throng the borders of Northern New York, 
are all indebted to the superabundant waters of this wilder- 
ness reservoir for their canals and water courses, which are 
the perennial sources of their growth and prosperity. And 
doubtless in the not distant future the cities of the Mohawk 
and the Hudson even down to the sea will need these 
waters for their daily use, and will extend their acpieducts 
into the wilderness, to draw them from the living springs 
among the mountains. 



III. 

THE ADIRONDAK PARK. 

In this wilderness lies a natural park or pleasure ground, 
the grandest in the world. Nowhere else do five thousand 
square miles of such grand old woods lie all unbroken so 
near the most busy haunts of men. 

The city of New York has lately rescued a part of her 
territory from the tyranny of pavements — from the rule of 
brick and mortar, and placed it under the milder dominion 
of shaded walks and flower-covered lawns, and Central 
Park is the city's pride and crowning glory. 



THE GREAT WILDERNESS. 43 

Nature herself has here formed a park that only needs 
preserving to be to the state all that Central Park is to the 
city. Let the state preserve that which Nature has so 
kindly bestowed with a lavish hand, as a breathing place 
for the sick and weary of her .swarming population, and the 
Ad-i-ron-dak Park of Couch-sac h-ra-ge will be her pride and 
glory. 

IV. 

GRAND DIVISIONS OF THE WILDERNESS. 

The Wilderness of Northern New York may properly be 
divided into three natural grand divisions or belts, which 
extend across it diagonally from north-east to south-west. 
These natural divisions may be called the Mountain Belt, 
the Lake Belt, and the Level Belt. Each of these great 
belts comprises about one-third part of the Wilderness, and 
each is strongly marked by the distinguishing characteristics 
which suggest its name. 

The Mountain Belt, whose greatest width is about forty 
miles, extends across the south-eastern part of the wilder- 
ness, from the southern half of Lake Champlain and Lake 
George to the middle valley of the Mohawk River. It is a 
wild, weird region, crowded to fullness with mountains and 
mountain masses of hypersthene and other of the upper 
Laurentian system of rocks. These stupendous mountain 
masses are surmounted with towering rocky peaks almost 
numberless and nameless. A bright lake or a fair mountain 
meadow sleeps in every valley between them, and a wild 
torrent dashes and foams through every gorge. This 
Mountain Belt of the wilderness is the Switzerland of the 
New World. 



44 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

The Lake Belt is about thirty miles wide, and stretches 
centrally through the wilderness from the northern half of 
Lake Champlain one hundred and fifty miles to the head 
waters of the Black River in the northern part of Oneida 
county. This belt is a rugged region, by no means free 
from mountain masses and lofty peaks, but mainly consists 
of a depression in the rocky groundwork of the wilderness, 
forming a sort of valley, which runs parallel with the ranges 
of the Mountain Belt. It is dotted all over with a thou- 
sand lakes, each in its own wild way a gem of beauty, and 
it is navigable, with the exception of a few short carrying 
places, by canoes from one end to the other. The Lake 
Belt of the Wilderness is a belt spangled with jewels. 

The Level Belt comprises the remaining north-western 
part of the wilderness, which slopes gradually off from the 
Lake Belt to the great plains that border the St. Lawrence. 
This belt is not altogether level, as its name indicates, but 
is only comparatively so when contrasted with the more 
rugged Lake and Mountain Belts. Its whole surface is 
covered with low, rolling, forest crowned hills, and studded 
with immense bare boulders, all composed of the granite 
and gneiss of the lower Laurentian system of rocks. Around 
these hills and huge bare rocks, countless streams wind 
through interminable woods. Like the other great belts, 
this is also filled with lakes and mountain meadows, some 
of which are of great size and beauty. The Level Belt of 
the Wilderness is a complete forest Arcadia — a hunter's 
paradise. 



CHAPTER V. 

MOUNTAINS OF THE WILDERNESS. 

Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye, 
Whose sun-bright summit mingles with the sky ? 
Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear, 
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near ? 

— Catnpbeir s Pleasures of Hope. 

I. 

THE LAURENTIDES. 

The underlying rocky strata of the highlands of the Wil- 
derness belong to the Laurentian system of Canada. 

The great Canadian Laurentian mountain chain extends 
from the coast of Labrador along the northern shore of 
the St. Lawrence river to a point near the city of Quebec. 
From this point it recedes from the river inland for some 
thirty miles or more, until it crosses the Ottawa river above 
Montreal. 

After crossing the Ottawa, the chain again bends south- 
erly toward the St. Lawrence, and a spur of it crosses the 
great river at the Thousand Islands into Northern New 
York. 

After thus, by its rugged broken character, forming the 
Thousand Islands in crossing the St. Lawrence, this great 
spur of the Laurentides spreads easterly to Lake Champlain 
and the Upper Hudson, southerly to the valley of the Mo- 
hawk, and westerly to the Black river, forming the whole 
rocky groundwork of the great upland region of the Wil- 
derness. 



46 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

II. 

THE OLDEST SYSTEM OF ROCKS. 

The Laurentian system of rocks constitutes the oldest 
known strata of the earth's crust. 

'I'hese rocks were doubtless the first dry land that ap- 
peared above the primeval ocean, which, l)efore they rose 
above its surface, enveloped the whole earth with one wide 
limitless waste of waters. Out of the dreary steaming 
depths of this boundless ocean, there came, in the course 
of the creation, these Laurentian rocks peering into the 
misty sunshine of the new world, ages upon ages before the 
softer rocks of the Apalachian chain of what is now the 
Atlantic slope were deposited in their ocean beds. Then 
doubtless there were ages of slow upheaval into the wear 
and tear of the fierce war of the elements of the still heated 
but slowly cooling surface of the young world. Then followed 
ages of slow depression, until the small Laurentian conti- 
nent was again sul)merged, and the waves of the boundless 
sea again beat over the low sinking rounded rocks. 

As the surface of the new earth gradually cooled and 
contracted, once more the Laurentian continent rose above 
the waters. This time it lifted into the sunshine the bro- 
ken and corrugated mountain masses of the Upper Lauren- 
tian rocks that now constitute the ranges of the Mountain 
Belt of the Wilderness. 

Then the crumbling pulverized materials of the old worn- 
out rocks began to settle in the warm muddy bed of the 
ocean that washed the shores of this slowly-rising Lauren- 
tian continent, and the sandstones, limestones, slates and 
shales of the less ancient geologic systems were formed. 



MOUNTAINS OF THE WTT,DERNESS. 47 

After this came the upheaval of these newly deposited 
strata into the great Apalachian chain ; the ocean receded 
to its present coast line, and the continent became vastly 
enlarged, leaving the old Laurentian region far inland. 

In the days of the I.aurentian continent the region of the 
Wilderness was a peninsula^ joined to the mainland by a 
narrow isthmus at the Tliousand Islands. I5ut this penin- 
sula, although left by the final great ui)heaval far inland, 
was left by it surrounded by the remarkable depressions or 
valleys through which the water-courses now run that make 
it an island — the Island of Northern New York. 



TIL 

MOUNTAIN CHAINS. 

There are no less than five separate mountain chains or 
ranges which run through the whole length of the Mountain 
Belt of the Wilderness. These ranges are about eight miles 
apart, and run parallel with each other. They are not al- 
ways ([uite distinct, but sometimes their lateral spurs inter- 
lock, and sometimes single mountains are so vast that they 
occupy the whole space between the ranges and choke up 
the valleys. They are not regularly serrated, but consist of 
groups of peaks, joined together by immense ridges, which 
rise continually higher and higher toward the north until 
they culminate in the highest peaks of the Adirondack 
range. 

The Mountain Kelt of the Wilderness presents on every 
hand an Alpine landscape, with its towering mountain 
peaks, deep yawning abysses, rough granite blocks, sweep- 
ing torrents, fresh fountains, and green meadows. 



48 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

IV. 

THE LUZERNE RANGE. 

The most easterly of these five mountain ranges in the 
Mountain Belt is the Palmertown or Luzerne range. It 
begins at Ticonderoga, on Lake Champlain, runs down on 
both sides of Lake George, forming the beautiful highlands 
that surround that lake, and stretching southward across 
the upper Hudson, which breaks through it just above 
Glens Falls, terminates in the rocky forest-covered hills 
that bound the village of Saratoga Springs on the north. 

Mount Defiance, of historic fame, stands guard over the 
ruins of old Fort Carrillon at Ticonderoga, rising seven 
hundred and fifty feet above the lake. The Indian name 
of this place was Che-oti-de-ro-ga — "Sounding Waters." 
The French translated this to Carrillon, a chime. It was 
suggested by the chiming sound of the falls on the outlet 
of Lake George, near by. 

French mountain, of this range, more than two thousand 
five hundred feet above tide water, overlooks with frowning 
brow the old battle-ground at the head of Lake George, 
rich in historic memories. 

A spur of this range to the westward forms the Luzerne 
Mountains, whose highest peak is Se-non-ge-non — the great 
up-turned pot — now called Mt. Kettle Bottom. 

V. 

THE KAYADROSSERA RANGE. 

The next range is the Kay-ad-ros-se-ra. They extend from 
near Crown Point, which is the old Indian Tek-ya-dough-ni- 
gar-i-gee — "Two Points," — on Lake Champlain, down 



MOUNTAINS OF THE WILDERNESS. 49 

through Warren into Saratoga county, and running along a 
little to the westward of Saratoga Springs, in plain sight of 
the village, terminate in the highlands of Galway and 
Charlton. They derive their name from the old Indian 
hunting ground of which they form so conspicuous a fea- 
ture. Lake Scarroii. (corrupted into Schroon) lies in the 
valley to the west of this range. The Hudson winds along 
for many miles in a deep gorge between its mountain masses. 
The Sacondaga breaks through from the west, and enters 
the Hudson in this gorge. Mount Pharaoh, whose Indian 
name is On-de-wa, is its highest peak, being four thousand 
feet above the sea. 



VI. 

THE SCARRON RANGE. 

The third chain of mountains in the Great Wilderness 
is the Scarron (Schroon) Range. This range begins in the 
promontory of Split Rock on Lake Champlain, in Essex 
county, and running through Warren into the south-east 
corner of Hamilton, ends in the rounded drift hills that rise 
from the valley of the Mohawk in the eastern part of Ful- 
ton county. 

Scarron (Schroon) Lake lies at the foot of this range, and 
Scarron (Schroon) River winds through its deep valleys. 
From this lake and river the range derives its name. 

This name was given to this lake and river by the early 
French settlers at Crown Point, on Lake Champlain, in 
honor of Madame Scarron, the widow of the celebrated 
French dramatist and novelist, Paul Scarron, who was 
styled in his day " the emperor of the burlesque." 
7 



50 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

The maiden name of Madame Scarron, who afterward 
became the famous Madame de Maintenon, was Franyoise 
d'Aubign^. Her grandfather was the celebrated Agrippa 
d'Aubign^, the soldier, prose writer and poet, the friend of 
Henry IV of France. Her father. Constant d'Aubign^, the 
Baron of Surimeau, was a profligate and libertine, and was 
thrown into prison at Niort for killing his wife and her 
lover, whom he had taken in adultery. While in prison he 
married Jeanne de Cardilhac, the daughter of the governor 
of the prison. Before his release, several children were 
born to him, among whom was Fran9oise, our heroine. 
After his release, her father went to Martinique with his 
little family, where he soon after died in the most abject 
poverty. Shortly after her father's death, Fran9oise return- 
ed to France with her mother, and after much suffering and 
many trials, found an asylum in an almost menial position 
in the house of her godmother, the Countess de Neuillant. 
She was in fact a mere drudge in the service of the Coun- 
tess, minding poultry in the farmyard, in peasant's garb and 
wooden shoes. 

In the same street with Fran9oise lived the poet Scarron, 
who was a paralytic and a cripple. Becoming interested in 
the sad story of the young girl, he offered to furnish the 
money to complete her education in a convent. Calling to 
thank her benefactor, the young, beautiful and intelligent 
girl captivated him at once, and he offered her his hand in 
marriage. She was seventeen, and he more than twice her 
age, but she accepted his offer. She brought the poor crip- 
ple the wealth of her youth, grace and beauty, and he con- 
ferred upon her in return an immortal name. The house 
of Scarron soon became the resort of the most gifted intel- 



MOUNTAINS OF THE WILDERNESS. 5 I 

lects of Paris. Among its frequent guests were the great 
Racine and the brilliant Madame de S^vign^. 

But a more brilliant chapter opened in the life of the 
poor prison-born Fran9oise. Her poet husband died, and 
the still beautiful and fascinating woman this time capti- 
vated royalty itself by her wondrous charms. By some 
means she became the secret governess of the natural child- 
ren of Louis XIV, by Madame de Montespan, and soon be- 
came the rival of the latter in the affections of the volup- 
tuous king. At length the queen, Maria Theresa of Austria, 
died, and Louis, unable to make her his mistress, secretly 
married the fascinating widow Scarron. The ceremony was 
performed at midnight, in June, 1684, in the palace of Ver- 
sailles, the Archbishop of Paris and Father la Chaise offici- 
ating, only two or three others being present besides the king 
and his bride. Thus Madame Scarron became the Queen 
of France in fact but not in name. The king settled a large 
estate upon her, named Maintenon, and made her Marquise 
de Maintenon. As Madame de Maintenon, for nearly thirty 
years she exercised a remarkable influence over the desti- 
nies of France and of Europe. 

Like Blanche of Castile, Agnes Sorel, Madame de Pom- 
padour and Marie Antoinette, Madame de Maintenon is one 
of the high historical characters of France. But unlike 
theirs, there is an air of mystery about her career that ren- 
ders it all the more fascinating. By some she was regarded 
as a person full of crafty intrigue, who, with a subtlety 
scarcely human, bewitched an aged monarch by her fascin- 
ating charms into humiliating subjection to her will. By 
others she was regarded as a divinely appointed messenger. 



52 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

with almost miraculous powers, to win a lascivious king 
from his immoral ways. 

But the mountain chain, the lake, and the river, bear her 
more humble name — the name of her poor, poet husband, 
Scarron. Doubtless some former frequenter of the brilliant 
salon of the poor poet cripple, in sunny France, who had 
often been charmed by the exquisite grace and tact of his 
young and beautiful wife, had, in his lonely wanderings in 
the northern wilds of the New World, while indulging in 
the pleasing memories of the past, in the enthusiasm of his 
admiration for her, named the beautiful lake and stream in 
her honor. How full of meaning, then, is the name Scarron 
for this lake and river, and mountain chain, as it is written 
in all the old maps. 



VII. 

THE BOQUET RANGE. 

The fourth chain is the Boquet range, named from the 
river that waters its base in Essex county. It begins in the 
high bluffs that border on Perou Bay, on Lake Champlain, 
and extends through the center of Essex, past the north- 
west corner of Warren into Hamilton, and through the 
south-east corner of Hamilton into the west end of Fulton 
county, and ends in the rocky bluffs that border East 
Canada Creek above where it enters the Mohawk. The 
highest mountain in this range is Dix Peak, in North Hud- 
son, Essex county, which rises 4,916 feet above the sea 
level. 



MOUNTAINS OF THE WILDERNESS. 53 

VIII. 
THE ADIRONDAK RANGE. 

. The fifth range of mountains in the Mountain Belt of the 
Great Wilderness, is the Adirondak chain proper. This 
name, the origin of which is given in Chapter IV, was ori- 
ginally applied by Prof. Emmons, while making his geologi- 
cal survey of this region, to the remarkable group of high 
peaks of which Mount Marcy, the highest peak in the 
chain, forms the towering central figure. This fifth and last 
great range extends from Point Trembleau, near Port Kent, 
on Lake Champlain, in nearly a straight line through Essex, 
Hamilton and Herkimer counties, and ends on the Mohawk 
river in the rocky barrier through which that river has worn 
its channel at Little Falls. This chain is more than a hun- 
dred miles in length, and is the backbone of the Highlands 
of the Wilderness. It divides the waters that flow northerly 
into the St. Lawrence from those that run southerly into 
the Hudson. 

Mount Marcy, the old Indian Ta-ha-%i>as — " He splits the 
sky," — was found by Verplanck Colvin to be 5,402 feet 
above the level of the sea. It is the highest land east of 
the Mississippi, save the White Mountains of New Hamp- 
shire, and the Black Mountains of North Carolina. Mount 
Mclntyre, of this range, the Indian He-110-ga — "The Home 
of the Thunderer," is 5,201 feet. Mount Haystack is 5,006 
feet, and Mount Skylight 5,000 feet above tide water. Upon 
the south side of Mount Marcy is a little pond or pool, 
called by the old guides Summit Water, and named by Ver- 
planck Colvin " Tear of the Clouds." It is 4,326 feet above 
tide. • A mile or two south of it is its twin pool, named 



54 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

Moss Lake, which is 4,312 feet above tide. These sister 
lakelets are the highest pond sources of the Hudson. Moss 
Lake is margined and embanked with luxuriant sphagnous 
mosses, and is more of a mountain meadow than a lake. 
Hence its name. In it Colvin found numbers of beautiful 
minute white bivalve shells, but three-sixteenths of an inch 
in diameter. 

Near the summit of these high mountains are found 
many rare arctic plants. Among them are the mountain 
golden-rod, the Arenaria grooilandica, (Greenland sand 
root), and the Potentilla tridentata, (white cinquefoil). 



IX. 

MOUNTAINS OF THE LAKE BELT. 

The Mountain Belt terminates as well as culminates in 
the Adirondack range. Westerly and northerly of it in the 
Lake Belt the mountains are more scattered and broken, 
and are arranged in vast groups or clusters around some 
high peak that overlooks the wilderness of lakes. 

One such group lies around Mount Seward, which is ten 
miles south of the Saranac lakes. Mount Seward, whose 
Indian name is Ou-kor-la — the "Great Eye" — is 4,332 feet 
above tide. 

Another group lies around Mount Whiteface, whose In- 
dian name is Wa-ho-par-ien-ie, and at whose base sleeps 
Lake Placid. Whiteface is 4,956 feet above tide. Upon 
its bare, storm-beaten summit some enthusiastic lover of 
the grand in nature has cut with reverent chisel, deep and 
clear into its everlasting rock, these words : 

THANKS BE TO GOD FOR THE MOUNTAINS. 



MOUNTAINS OF THE WILDERNESS. 55 

A third group surrounds Blue Mountain, in the Racjuette 
I,ake region. Blue Mountain is 3,824 feet above tide. Its 
old Indian name is To-jvar-loon-da — "Hill of Storms." 

Still another group is gathered around Mount Lyon, 
which rises to the height of about 4,000 feet between the 
Chateaugay and Chazy lakes. This group consists of the 
spurs and broken ranges that cover the northerly half of 
Clinton county with their wild grandeur. 

The chains and groups above named constitute the 
mountains of the Great Wilderness which were called by 
the early French explorers the "Mountains of St. Marthe." 



X. 

THE VIEW FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOPS. 

From the summit of any of the high mountains of the 
Great Wilderness, the scene presented to the eye of the 
beholder is one of the most striking and sublime in the 
whole domain of nature. It is at once awfully grand and 
wildly beautiful beyond the power of language to describe. 
On every side peak after peak towers up into the clear, 
cold atmosphere above the clouds, their outlines growing 
softer and more shadowy in the distance, until the earth 
and sky commingle in the vast encircling horizon. In 
all the nearer valleys, full in view, sleep numberless 
mountain meadows and quiet lakes and lakelets, " pools of 
liquid crystal turned emerald in the reflected green of im- 
pending woods." Wonderful also are the hues and tints 
and shades of color which these mountains assume with the 
varying seasons of the year and with the daily changes of 
the weather, as the sky becomes bright and clear or dark 



56 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

and overcast. Now we see them clothed in the crimson 
and golden tints of the evening — now in the cold, leaden 
grey of the morning; now silvery mists creep up their 
shaggy sides and linger languidly in their valleys — then 
purple shadows flit across them and play upon their sum- 
mits. Sometimes the air is so pure and clear after a storm 
breaks away, that all the mountains stand out with outlines 
so sharply defined, and their giant forms seemingly appear 
so near, that we fancy human voices might be heard from 
the farthest of them. Then again they are all mantled with 
the matchless soft blue haze, often called mountain smoke, 
which is that dim, impalpable but lovely illusion and sem- 
blance of a color, that indescribable appearance of the 
fleeting, the vanishing and the spiritual, seen nowhere else 
in nature's realm but among the mountains, that makes the 
bristling crags and towering peaks, and solid mountain 
masses seem for all the world like softly sleeping clouds", 
hanging low down in a far-off shadowy sky, or floating over 
the sleeping bosom of some distant mountain lake. Thus 
the scene forever changes, every day in the year, and every 
hour in the day presenting some new feature in the 
mountain landscape. 

But more striking and more wonderful than all else is the 
corrugated, wave-like, billowy appearance of the whole 
mountain region, that so forcibly reminds one of the wide, 
rolling sea. It seems as though the ocean, in one of its 
wildest, maddest storms, had suddenly 

" Stood still with all its rounded billows fixed 
And motionless forever." 



MOUNTAINS OF THE WILDERNESS. 57 

XI. 

ALTITUDE OF MOUNTAIN PEAKS. 

Below is a table showing the height of some of the 
principal mountains of the Wilderness, mostly as measured 
by Verplanck Colvin in his Adirondack survey : 

-J Height in feet 

^^™^- above tide. 

Mount Marcy, 5.402 

Mount Mclntyre, 5. 201 

Mount Haystack, 5.oo6 

Mount Skylight, 5.000 

Mount Grey Peak, 4-9S4 

Mount White Face, 4.955 

Mount Clinton, 4,937 

Mount South Mclntyre, 4.937 

Mount Dix, 4.9^6 

Mount Little Haystack, 4,854 

Mount Golden, 4,753 

MountGothic, 4,744 

Mount Redfield, 4,688 

Mount Nipple Top, 4,684 

Mount Santanoni, 4,644 

Saddle Mountain, 4,536 

Giant of the Valley, 4,53° 

Mount Seward, 4,384 

Macomb's Mountain, 4,37i 

Ragged Mountain, 4,163 

Mount Colvin, 4,I42 

Mount Lyon, 4,000 

Mount Pharoah 4,000 

Mount Seymour, 3,928 

Mount Bald Face, 3,903 

Mount Devil's Ear, , 3,903 

Snowy Mountain, 3,903 

Mount Wall Face, 3.893 

Blue Mountain, 3,824 

North River Mountain, 3.758 

Mount Hurricane, 3.763 

Mount Hoffman, ... 3,727 

Bartlett Mountain 3.715 



CHAPTER VI. 

MOUNTAIN PASSES. 

I climbed the dark brow of the mighty Hellvellyn, 

Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide ; 

All was still, save by fits when the eagle was yelling, 
And starting around me the echoes replied. 

On the right Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was bending, 

And Catchedicam its left verge was defending. 

One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending.. 
When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer had died. 

— Sir Walter Scott. 

I. 

THE INDIAN PASS. 

Among the stern and rugged features of the grim Wilder- 
ness, none are more awfully grand and imposing than 
the mountain passes over the highest ranges, and the dread- 
ful gorges that so often furrow the mountain sides. 

The most celebrated of these mountain passes is the 
Indian Pass over the Adirondack range in the town of 
North Elba, in Essex county. This pass was called by the 
Indians Otne-yar-heh — "Stonish Giants," Ga-nos-g7vah — 
"Giants clothed with stone," Da-yoh-je-ga-go — "The place 
where the storm clouds meet in battle with the great ser- 
pent," and He-no-do-aw-da — "The Path of the Thunderer." 
Through this pass ran the old Indian trail which led from 
the head waters of the rivers that flow into Lake Champlain 
to the head waters of the forest branches of the Hudson, 
and through it now runs the trail of the tourist and modern 
hunter. The old Indian Pass is an appalling chasm of more 
than a mile in length, and more than a thousand feet in 
depth, cut through the solid rock between Mounts Mcln- 
tyre and Wall Face. The bottom of this awful gorge is a 



I 



MOUNTAIN PASSES. 59 

narrow ravine strewn with huge fragments of rock that 
some Titanic force has hurled from the towering mountain 
walls on either side. 

On its westerly or Wall Face side, a perpendicular pre- 
cipice or wall of rocks towers up to the giddy height of 
thirteen hundred feet ; while on its easterly side is a steep 
acclivity which rises at an angle of forty-five degrees, more 
than fifteen hundred feet towards the lofty summit of Mount 
Mclntyre. Near the center of this wondrous chasm, 
high upon the shaggy side of Mount Mclntyre, two little 
springs issue from the rocks so near to each other that their 
waters almost mingle. From each spring flows a tiny 
stream. These streams at first interlock, but soon separat- 
ing, run down the mountain side into the bottom of the 
chasm, which is here 2,937 feet above tide. After reaching 
the bottom, one runs southerly into the head waters of the 
Hudson, and the other northerly into the waters that flow 
into the St. Lawrence. 

Only a little while at mid-day does the sunshine chase 
away the gloomy shadows of the perpetual twilight of this 
awful chasm, and the snow and ice linger all summer in its 
deep fissures. 

The towering precipice on the side of Mount Wall Face 
is the most striking feature of the old Indian Pass. It 
seems as if Mount Mclntyre, suddenly, in some great con- 
vulsion of nature, or by slow degrees, had sunk more than 
a thousand feet below its former level, leaving this grand 
perpendicular wall of solid rock on the side of Wall Face 
to mark the extent of the great depression. The scene 
presented by this stupendous yawning chasm and awful 
precipice is sublimely grand beyond description. "In 



6o NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

viewing this great precipice," says Prof. Emmons, "no feel- 
ing of disappointment is felt in consequence of the expect- 
ation having- exceeded the reality." "What a sight," says 
Alfred B. Street, "horrible, and yet sublimely beautiful — 
no, not beautiful, scarce an element of beauty there — all 
grandeur and terror." 



II. 

OTHER MOUNTAIN PASSES. 

Between Mounts Dix and Nipple Top, another gloomy 
gorge extends across the Boquet range, called the Hunter's 
Pass. It is second in wild grandeur only to the famous 
Indian Pass. The height of the center of the Hunter's 
Pass is 3,247 feet above tide. In this pass also, two rivers 
take their rise whose waters seek the sea in contrary direc- 
tions — the Boquet running northerly to Lake Champlain, 
and the Schroon southerly into the Hudson. 

In the gorge next west of Nipple Top is the Elk Pass. 
This pass leads from the head of an easterly branch of the 
Schroon to a branch of the Au Sable, and opens upon the 
head of Keene Valley. Its summit is 3,302 feet above the 
level of the sea. 

Between Russagonia or Sawtooth Mountain and Mount 
Colvin is the Au Sable Pass. It leads from the Lower Au 
Sable Lake to the head waters of the Boreas River, a branch 
of the Hudson. It is a water-gap, forming a natural gate- 
way through the mountains. 

The Opalescent-head Pass and the Avalanche Lake Pass 
are elevated mountain passes whose centers are more than 
four thousand feet above tide. 



MOUNTAIN PASSES. 6 1 

Then there is the Ou-lus-ka Pass, "the place of shadows," 
between Mount Seward and Ragged Mountain. 

The Caraboo Pass runs around the peak of Mount Mc- 
Intyre, connecting the head of the Opalescent River with 
the head waters of the Au Sable. 

The Great Elba Pass extends as a broad valley along the 
west side of Mount White Face, and the Ampersand Valley 
Pass lies between Ragged Mountain and Mount Seymour. 

Then there is the Panther Gorge on Mount Marcy, whose 
very name makes one shudder, and the Gorge of the Dial 
— gloomy mountain gorges that impress the beholder with 
feelings of unutterable awe and terror.* 

The reader's attention has so far been called to the more 
rugged features of the Mountain Belt of the Great Wilder- 
ness. In the following chapters I shall attempt to sketch 
some of its softer and more gentle aspects — its lakes and 
streams and mountain meadows. 

* See Report of the Topographical Survey of the Adirondack Wilder- 
ness of New York for the year 1873, by Verplanck Colvin ; Natural 
History of New York, Part IV ; The Indian Pass, by Alfred B. Street, 
notes to poems of Charles Fenno Hoffman, and Hough's Gazetteer of 
New York of 1S72. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MOUNTAIN MEADOWS. 

The spring has passed this way. Look ! where she trod 

The daring crocus sprang up through the sod, 

To greet her coming with glad heedlessness, 

Scarce waiting to put on its leafy dress, 

But bright and bold in its brave nakedness. 

And further on — mark ! — on this gentle rise 

She must have passed, for frail anemones 

Are trembling to the wind couched low among 

These fresh green grasses that so lush have sprung 

O'er the hid runnel, that with tinkling tongue 

Babbles its secret troubles. Here she stopped 

A longer while, and on this grassy sweep. 

While pensively she lingered, see ! she dropped 

This knot of love-sick violets from her breast, 

Which as she threw them down she must have kissed. 

For still the fragrance of her breath they keep. 

— IF, VV. S., in BlackwoocT s Magazine. 

The Wilderness is mostly characterized by the rugged 
grandeur of its mountain scenery, yet it is not wholly with- 
out its softer aspects and more gentle features. Among 
these none are more wildly beautiful than its Mountain 
Meadows. 

In all the valleys between the mountain ranges, and scat- 
tered thickly about all through the lake and level belts of 
the Wilderness, are numberless mountain meadows, sleep- 
ing in their quiet beauty, veiled in the dreamy haze, the 
lovely mountain smoke of the short Adirondack summers. 

In these wild mountain meadows Nature, in her playful 
moments, seems to have dressed the fairy scene in sharp 
contrast with the frowning grandeur of the mountain 
gorges. 

Some of these wild meadows are broad expanses of wav- 
ing grass — miniature prairies — often of miles in extent. 
Through the most of them a brooklet winds with sluggish 



MOUNTAIN MEADOWS. 63 

current, filled with speckled trout, — its banks covered with 
the bloom of the crocus, the anemone, violets, grass pinks, 
wild roses and azaleas. 

Others are wide marshes or peat bogs, carpeted with 
deep many colored sphagnous mosses, and covered with 
clumps of low, bushy shrubs, among which the modest 
Kalmia blooms beside the blue gentian and the flaming car- 
dinal flower, and the curious side-saddle flower or pitcher 
plant alternates with the rare yellow iris. 

Among the largest and most famous of these mountain 
meadows is the Sacondaga Vlaie in the northern part of 
Fulton county, near which Sir William Johnston built his 
hunting lodges, called the Fish House and the cottage on 
the Summer House Point, (built in 1772,) at which he spent 
several months in the summer. This vlaie is five or six 
miles in length, and in many places more than a mile in 
width. Through il runs the Ken-ny-et-to creek ; and the 
Mayfield creek runs into the Sacondaga at the Fish House. 

Another of these natural meadows or miniature prairies 
of equal size, also called the Vlaie^ lies along the west bank 
of the Black River, in Lewis county, between Lowville and 
Castorland. 

Many of these wild meadows cover extensive beds of 
peat. It seems that a large share of the vegetable matter 
of the soil of the wilderness has been washed into these 
peaty beds. A beautiful feature of these beds is the rich 
carpet of sphagnous mosses with which they are covered. 
These mosses, late in the summer, sometimes drop their 
delicate shades of green, and rival the autumn leaves in 
the soft beauty of their hues and tints. These carpets of 
the wilderness are then more beautiful than the fairest pro- 



64 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

ducts of the Persian looms. At Number Four, near Fen- 
ton's, is one of these charming mountain meadows carpeted 
with brilliant mosses. 

Around all these wild mountain meadows of the Great 
Wilderness, and along the borders of the brooks that wander 
through them, is always to be seen a wavy line of alders and 
shining willows. Along this line the shad bush hangs out 
in earliest spring its flag of truce, and the trailing arbutus 
peeps with bright eyes as it creeps forth beside the linger- 
ing snow-banks. Later in the season, the clematis — virgin's 
bower — twines, with its clusters of purple blossoms, and the 
sweet azaleas and wild roses mingle their fragrance with 
the violets and lilies that bloom among the grasses. Often 
in the sumptuous summer these meadows are all ablaze 
with the scarlet and purple flowers of the early autumn of 
warmer regions. 

In many of these natural meadows of the wilderness may 
still be seen the remains of old beaver dams, and sometimes 
the decaying stumps of old trees once gnawed by beavers' 
teeth. These wild meadows were the beaver's favorite 
home when the old wilderness was the Indian Couch-sach- 
ra-ge, or " Beaver Hunting Country," and are now called 
by the hunters "beaver meadows." It is supposed that 
the beaver long since ceased to exist within the boundaries 
of the wilderness. The last one was seen in the vicinity of 
Bog Lake, by Charles Fenton, more than twenty years ago. 
Yet it is said that there are unexplored regions which lie at 
some distance from the frequented forest trails where a (&\\ 
colonies yet linger in their ancient home, unmolested by 
man. 

Around all the wild meadows may be seen many a quiet 



MOUNTAIN MEADOWS. 65 

nook, where the deer comes in to croj) his morning meal 
from off the juicy grasses, and the black bear to gather his 
supper of sweet wild berries. And here and there among 
them, " dells smile, fit haunts for fairies, where the thrasher 
pipes, the scampering squirrel barks, and the gliding rabbit 
jerks its long ears at every sound, and the ancient path of 
the whirlwind is seen, with the wrenched trees long since 
melted into the grass of a vista like an old settler-road, so 
that the eye looks in vain for the faint wheel track." 

Such are some of the smiling and softer aspects of the 
grim old wilderness. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE. 

" The very echoes round this shore 

Have caught a strange and gibbering tone 
For they have told the war whoop o'er, 
Till the wild chorus is their own." 

— Goodrich. 

I. 

THE GEM OF THE OLD WILDERNESS. 

In the olden time, when the whole North Continent was 
a vast howling wilderness from the frozen ocean to the 
flowery gulf land, many bright, fair lakes lay sleeping in its 
awful solitudes, their waters flashing in the sunshine, like 
gleaming mirrors, and lighting up the somber desolation 
like jewels in an iron crown ; but the fairest and the bright- 
est of them all was Lake George. 

It was the gem of the old wilderness. Of the thousand 
lakes that adorn the surface of Northern New York, there 
is none among them all to-day so fair, none among them 
all so like "A diadem of beauty," as Lake George — its 
deepest waters as bright and as pure as the dew drops that 
linger on its lilies. 

Its authentic history runs back for two hundred and forty 
years. Its forest traditions extend into the dim, mythical, 
mysterious and unknown romance of the New World. But 
its waters have not always been as pure as they are to-day, 
and we would all grow weary of its story, for it is a story of 
blood. In the following pages, therefore, I shall attempt 
to sketch a few only of the most noted incidents connected 
with its discovery by white men. 



THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE. 67 

II. 

ISAAC JOGUES. 

The first white men who saw Lake George were the Jes- 
uit Father Isaac Jogues, and his companions Ren^ Goupil 
and Guillame Couture. They were taken over its waters 
as prisoners — tortured, maimed and bleeding, — by the Mo- 
hawks, in the month of August, 1642. 

Isaac Jogues, the discoverer of Lake George, was born 
at Orleans, in France, on the loth of January, 1607, and 
received there the rudiments of his education. In Octo- 
ber, 1624, he entered the Jesuit Society at Rouen, and re- 
moved to the College of La Fletche in 1627. He complet- 
ed his divinity studies at Clermont College, Paris, and was 
ordained priest in February, 1636. In the spring of that 
year he embarked as a missionary for Canada, arriving at 
Quebec early in July. 

At the time of his first visit to Lake George, Jogues was 
but thirty-five years of age. " His oval face and the deli- 
cate mould of his features," says Parkman, "indicated a 
modest, thoughtful, and refined nature. He was constitu- 
tionally timid, with a sensitive conscience and great relig- 
ious susceptibilities. He was a finished scholar, and might 
have gained a literary reputation ; but he had chosen an- 
other career, and one for which he seemed but ill-fitted." 
His companions were young laymen who, from religious 
motives, had attached themselves without pay to the service 
of the Jesuit missions. 



68 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

III. 

WAR IN THE WILDERNESS. 

Thirty-three years before Jogues' first visit to Lake 
George, Samuel de Champlain, while on his voyage of dis- 
covery, had attacked the Iroquois on the shores of the lake 
that bears his name, and they had fled in terror from his 
murderous fire-arms to their homes on the Mohawk. Since 
then they had ceased to make war upon their hereditary 
enemies, the Canadian Algonquins, or the French colonists. 
But the Iroquois had by no means forgotten their hu- 
miliating defeat. In the meantime they had themselves 
been supplied with fire-arms by the Dutch traders at Fort 
Orange, on the Hudson, in exchange for beaver skins and 
wampum, and now their hour of sweet revenge had come. 

The war with the Fries, the Hurons, and the other western 
tribes, had been undertaken by the Senecas, the Cayugas 
and Onondagas. It was left to the Mohawks and the 
Oneidas to attempt the extermination of the Canadian Al- 
gonquins and their French allies. They came near accom- 
plishing their bloody purpose. But for the timely arrival 
of a few troops from France, the banks of the St. Lawrence 
would soon have become as desolate as the country of the 
lost Fries or that of the Hurons. The savages hung the 
war-kettle upon the fire and danced the war-dance in all 
the Mohawk castles. In bands of tens and hundreds 
they took the war-path, and passing through Lakes George 
and Champlain, and down the River Richelieu, went prowl- 
ing about the French settlements at Montreal, Three Rivers 
and Quebec, and the Indian villages on the Ottawa. The 
Iroquois were everywhere. From the Huron country to 



THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE. 69 

the Saguenay they infested the forests like so many raven- 
ing wolves. They hung about the French forts, killing 
stragglers and luring armed parties into fatal ambuscades. 
They followed like hounds upon the trail of travellers, 
and hunted through the forests, and lay in wait along the 
banks of streams to attack the passing canoes. It was one 
of these hostile bands of Mohawks that attacked and cap- 
tured Isaac Jogues and his companions. 



IV. 

CAPTURE OF JOGUES. 

Father Jogues had come down the savage Ottawa River 
a thousand miles, in his bark canoes, the spring before, 
from his far-off Huron Mission to Quebec, for much needed 
supplies. He was now on his return voyage to the Huron 
country. In the dewy freshness of the early morning of 
the second day of August, with his party of four French- 
men and thirty -six Hurons, in twelve heavily laden 
canoes. Father Jogues reached the westerly end of the 
expansion of the St. Lawrence called Lake St. Peters. It is 
there filled with islands that lie opposite the mouth of the 
River Richelieu. It was not long before they heard the 
terrible war-whoop upon the Canadian shore. In a moment 
more Jogues and his white companions and a part of his 
Hurons, were captives in the hands of the yelling, exulting 
Mohawks, and the remainder of the Hurons killed or dis- 
persed. 

Goupil was seized at once. Jogues might have escaped, 
but seeing Goupil and his Huron neophytes in the hands 
of their savage captors, he had no heart to desert them, 



70 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

and gave himself up. Couture at first eluded his pur- 
suers, but, like Jogues, relented, and returned to his com- 
panions. Five Iroquois ran to meet Couture as he approach- 
ed, one of whom snapped his gun ai his breast. It missed 
fire, but Couture in turn fired his own gun at the savage, 
and laid him dead at his feet. The others sprang upon 
him like panthers, stripped him naked, tore out his finger- 
nails with their teeth, gnawed his fingers like hungry dogs, 
and thrust a sword through one of his hands. Jogues, 
touched by the sufferings of his friend, broke from his 
guards, and threw his arms around Couture's neck. The 
savages dragged him away, and knocked him senseless. 
When he revived they gnawed his fingers with their teeth, 
and tore out his nails as they had done those of Couture. 
Turning fiercely upon Goupil they treated him in the same 
way. 

With their captives they then crossed to the mouth of the 
Richelieu, and encamped where the town of Sorel now 
stands.* 

The savages returned, by the way which they came, to 
the Mohawk with their suffering captives. 

On the eighth day, upon an island near the south end of 
Lake Champlain, they arrived at the camp of two hundred 
Iroquois, who were on their way to the St. Lawrence. At the 
sight of the captives, these fierce warriors, armed with clubs 
and thorny sticks, quickly ranged themselves in two long 
lines, between which the captives were each in turn made 
to run the gauntlet up a rocky hill-side. On their way they 
were beaten with such frenzy that Jogues fell senseless, 
half dead, and covered with blood. After passing this or- 

* Parkman's Jesuits in North America, p. 217. 



THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE. 71 

deal again, the captives were mangled as before, and this 
time tortured with fire. At night, when they tried to rest, 
the young warriors tore open their wounds, and pulled out 
their hair and beards. 



V. 

THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE. 

In the morning they resumed their journey, and soon 
reached a rocky promontory, near which rose a forest cov- 
ered mountain, beyond which the lake narrowed into a 
river. It was more than a hundred years before that prom- 
ontory became the famous Ticonderoga of later times. 

Between the promontory and the mountain a stream 
issued from the woods and fell into the lake. They landed 
at the mouth of the stream, and taking their canoes upon 
their shoulders, followed it up around the noisy waters of 
the falls. It was the Indian Che-non-de-ro-ga, " the chiming 
waters. '' They soon reached the shores of a beautiful lake 
that there lay sleeping in the depths of the limitless forest, 
all undiscovered and unseen by white men until then. It 
was the fairest gem of the old wilderness, now called Lake 
George. But then it bore only its old Indian name Caniad- 
eri-oit, " the tail of the lake." 

Champlain, thirty-three years before, had come no fur- 
ther than its outlet. He heard the " chiming waters" of 
the falls, and was told that a great lake lay beyond them. 
But he turned back without seeing it, and so our bruised 
and bleeding prisoners, Isaac Jogues, and his companions 
Goupil and Couture, were the first of white men to gaze 
upon its waters. 



72 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

" Like a fair Naiad of the Wilderness," says Parkman, 
"it slumbered between the guardian mountains that breathe 
between crag and forest the stern poetry of war."* 

Again they launched their frail canoes, and amid the 
dreamy splendors of an August day glided on their noise- 
less course across the charming waters. On they passed, 
under the dusky mountain shadows, now over some wide 
expanse, now through the narrow channels and among the 
woody islands, redolent with balsamy odors. At last they 
reached the landing place, at the head of the lake, after- 
ward the site of Fort William Henry, now Caldwell, famous 
as a summer resort. 

Here they left their boats and took the old Indian trail 
that led from Lake George, across Indian Kay-ad-ros-se-ra, 
a distance of forty miles, to the lower castles on the Mo- 
hawk. It was the same trail afterward followed by the 
Marquis de Tracy, in October, 1666, on his way to the 
Mohawk castles, with his army and train of French noble- 
men, to avenge the death of the youthful Chazy. 

This Indian trail, so often the war-path, led from the 
south end of Lake George on a southerly course to the 
great bend of the Hudson, about ten miles westerly of 
Glens Falls. From the bend it led southerly through the 
towns of Wilton and Greenfield, along in plain sight of, and 
but four or five miles distant from, Saratoga Springs, and 
through Galway to the lower castles on the Mohawk, four 
or five miles westerly of what is now Amsterdam, on the 
New York Central Railroad. 

* Jesuits in North America, p. 219. 



THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE. 73 

VI. 

THE CAPTIVITY OF JOGUES. 

After their arrival at the Mohawk towns, Father Jogues 
and his companions were again subjected to the most in- 
human tortures, with the horrid details of which I will not 
weary the reader. Among the Mohawks Jogues remained 
for nearly a year, a captive slave, performing the most menial 
duties. Soon after his arrival, more Huron prisoners were 
brought in, and put to death with cruel tortures. In the 
midst of his own sufferings, Jogues lost no opportunity to 
convert them to Christianity, sometimes even baptizing them 
with a few rain-drops which he found clinging to the husks 
of an ear of corn that was thrown to him for food. 

Couture had won their admiration by his bravery, and 
after inflicting upon him the most savage torture, they 
adopted him into one of their families in the place of a 
dead relation. But in October they murdered poor Goupil, 
and after dragging his body through the village, threw it 
into a deep ravine. Jogues sought it and gave it partial 
burial. He sought it again and it was gone. Had the 
torrent washed it away, or had it been taken off by the 
savages ? He searched the forest and the waters in vain. 
"Then crouched by the pitiless stream he mingled his tears 
with its waters, and in a voice broken with groans, chanted 
the service for the dead."* In the spring, while the snows 
were melting, some children told him where the body of 
poor Goupil was lying further down the stream. The In- 
dians, and not the torrent had taken it away. He found the 
bones scattered around, stripped by the foxes and birds. 

* Jesuits in North America, p. 225. 
10 



74 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

He tenderly gathered them, and hid them in a hollow tree, 
in the hope that he might some day be able to lay them in 
consecrated ground. 

Late in the autumn after his arrival he was ordered to go 
to some distant forest with a party of braves on their an- 
nual deer hunt. All the game they took they first offered 
to their god Ar-rok-oici, and then ate it in his honor. 
Jogues came near starving in the midst of plenty, for he 
would not taste the food offered to what he believed to be 
a demon. 

In a lonely spot in the forest he cut the bark in the form 
of a cross from the trunk of a large tree. Then half clad 
in shaggy furs, in the chill wintry air, he knelt before it 
upon the frozen ground in prayer. He was a living martyr 
to the faith before whose emblem he bowed in adoration — 
a faith in which was now his only hope and consolation. 

vn. 

THE ESCAPE. 

At length in the month of July, 1643, Father Jogues went 
with a fishing party to a place on the Hudson about twenty 
miles below Fort Orange. Some of the Iroquois soon re- 
turned, bringing Jogues with them. On their way they 
stopped at Fort Orange, and he made his escape. 

Fort Orange was then a small octagonal palisaded fort, 
situated on the flats near what is now the steamboat landing 
in Albany, and was surrounded by twenty or thirty plain 
wooden houses. Albany was then a small fur trading station 
at the lower end of the great carrying place between the 
Mohawk and the Hudson which avoided the Cohoes Falls. 



THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE. 75 

Jogues was secreted by the Dutch, and the savages made 
diligent search for him. Fearing his discovery and re- 
capture by them, the kind-hearted Dutch paid a large ran- 
som for the captive, and gave him a free passage to his home 
in France. He arrived in Brittany on Christmas day, and 
was received by his friends, who had heard of his captivity, 
as one risen from the dead. He was treated everywhere 
with mingled curiosity and reverence, and was summoned to 
Paris. The ladies of the court thronged around to do him 
homage. When he was presented to the queen, Anne of 
Austria, she kissed his mutilated hands — the hands of the 
poor slave of the Mohawk squaws. 

In the spring of 1644, Jogues returned to Canada, soon 
to become a martyr to his faith in the valley of the Mo- 
hawk. 



vni. 

THE LAKE OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 

For Still another year the Iroquois war raged with un- 
abated violence. Early in the spring of 1645, a famous 
Algonquin chief named Fiskarei, with a band of braves, 
went out upon the war-path toward the country of the 
Mohawks. Upon an island in Lake Champlain they met a 
war-party of thirteen Iroquois. They killed eleven of the 
number, made prisoners of the other two, and returned in 
triumph to the St. Lawrence. 

At Sillery, a small settlement on the St. Lawrence, near 
Quebec, Piskaret, in a speech, delivered his captives to 
Montmagny, the Governor General, who replied with com- 
pliments and gifts. 



76 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

The wondering captives, when they fairly comprehended 
that they were saved from cruel torture and death, were 
surprised and delighted beyond measure. Then one of the 
captive Mohawks, of great size and of matchless symmetry 
of form, who was evidently a war chief, arose and said to 
the Governor Montmagny : 

" Onnontio, I am saved from the fire. My body is de- 
livered from death. Onnontio, you have given me my life. 
I thank you for it. I will never forget it. All my country 
will be grateful to you. The earth will be bright, the river 
calm and smooth ; there will be peace and friendship be- 
tween us. The shadow is before my eyes no longer. The 
spirits of my ancestors slain by the Algonquins have disap- 
peared. Onnontio, you are good ; we are bad. But our 
anger is gone. I have no heart but for peace and rejoic- 
ing." 

As he said this he began to dance, holding his hands up- 
raised as if apostrophizing the sun. Suddenly he snatched 
a hatchet, brandished it for a moment like a mad man, then 
flung it into the fire saying as he did so : 

" Thus I throw down my anger ; thus I cast away the 
weapons of blood. Farewell war. Now, Onnontio, I am 
your friend forever." 

Onnontio means in the Indian tongue " Great Mountain." 
It is a literal translation of Montmagny's name. It was 
ever after the Iroquois name for the governors of Can- 
ada, as Corlear was for the Governors of New York. 
Corlear was the Indian name for Arendt van Curler, first 
superintendent of the " colonic of Rensselaerswick," who was 
a great favorite of the Mohawks. 

The captive Iroquois were well treated by the French 



THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE. ']'] 

and one of them sent home to their country on the Mo- 
hawk, under a promise of making negotiations for peace 
with his people, and the other kept as a hostage. The ef- 
forts of the captive chief who returned to the Mohawks 
were successful. In a short time he reappeared at Three 
Rivers with ambassadors of peace from the Mohawk can- 
tons. To the great joy of the French he brought with him 
Couture, who had become a savage in dress and appearance. 
After a great deal of feasting, speech-making and belt-giv- 
ing, peace was concluded, and order and quiet once more 
reigned for a brief period in the wilderness. 

But ambassadors from the French and Algonquins must 
be sent from Canada to the Mohawk towns, with gifts and 
presents to ratify the treaty. No one among the French 
was so well suited for this office as Isaac Jogues. His, too, 
was a double errand, for he had already been ordered by 
his superior to found a new mission among the Mohawks. 
It was named prophetically, in advance, "The Mission of 
the Martyrs." At the first thought of returning to the 
Mohawks, Jogues recoiled with horror. But it was only a 
momentary pang. The path of duty seemed clear to him, 
and, thankful that he was found worthy to suffer for the 
saving of souls, he prepared to depart. 

On the 1 6th of May, 1646, Father Jogues set out from 
Three Rivers with Sieur Bourdon, engineer to the Governor, 
two Algonquin ambassadors, and four Mohawks as guides. 
On his way he passed over the well remembered scenes of his 
former sufferings upon the River Richelieu and Lake Cham- 
plain. He reached the foot of Lake George on the eve of 
Corpus Christi, which is the feast of the Blessed Body of 
Jesus. He named the lake, in honor of the day, "The 



78 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

Lake of the Blessed Sacrament." For more than a hun- 
dred years afterward this lake bore no other name. When 
he visited the lake before, as a poor, suffering, bleeding 
prisoner, it was clad in the dreamy splendors of the early 
autumn. Now its banks were robed in the wild exuberance 
of leafy June. 

When Sir William Johnson began his military operations 
at the head of the lake in the summer of 1755, he changed 
its name to Lake George in honor of England's Hanoverian 
king. "Better," says an eminent historian, "had it been 
called Lake Jogues in honor of its gentle discoverer." 

From Lake St. Sacrament, Jogues proceeded on his way 
to the Mohawk country, and having accomplished his politi- 
cal mission, returned to Canada. 

Thus ended the first French and Indian war, which I 
shall call the war of 1642. 



IX. 

THE MISSION OF THE MARTYRS. 

But the work of Father Jogues was only half done. 
Again, in month of September he set out for the Mohawk 
country. On his way he again passed over the shining 
waters of Lake St. Sacrament. Now it had doffed its sum- 
mer dress, aud donned again the gold and crimson glories 
of the autumn forests. This time he went in his true char- 
acter, a minister of the gospel. But he had a strong pre- 
sentiment that his life was near its end. He wrote to a 
friend "I shall go and shall not return." His forebodings 
were verified. While there in July he had left a small box 
containing a few necessary articles in anticipation of an 



THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE. 79 

early return. The superstitious savages were confident that 
famine, pestilence, or some evil spirit or other was shut up in 
the box, which would in time come forth and devastate their 
country. To confirm their suspicions, that very summer 
there was much sickness in their castles, and when the har- 
vest came in the autumn they found that the caterpillars 
had eaten their corn. The Christian missionary was held 
responsible for all this, and was therefore doomed to die. 

He arrived at their village of Cach-na-wa-ga, on the 
bank of the Mohawk, on the 17th of October, and was sa- 
luted with blows. On the evening of the iSth, he was in- 
vited to sup in the wigwam of a chief. He accepted the in- 
vitation, and on entering the hut he was struck on the head 
with a tomahawk by a savage who was concealed within the 
door. They cut off his head, and in the morning displayed 
it upon one of the palisades that surrounded the village. 
His body they threw into the Mohawk. 

Thus died Father Isaac Jogues, the discoverer of Lake 

George, at his Mission of the Martyrs^ St. Mary of the 

Mohazvks, in the fortieth year of his age.* He was but an 

humble, self-sacrificing missionary of the Cross, yet his was 

" One of the few, the immortal names, 

That were not born to die." 

* For a full account of the martyrdom of Father Jogues, see Park- 
man's Jesuits in North America, to which work I am indebted for many 
of the incidents above related. Also see Abridged Relations of Father 
Bressany, published in Montreal in 1852, which contains a portrait of 
Father Jogues. 



CHAPTER IX. 

LAKES OF THE WILDERNESS. 

A minor, where the veteran rocks, 

May glass their seams and scars ; 
A nether sky where breezes break 

The sunshine into stars. 

— Houghton. 

I. 

Among the softer and more gentle aspects of the Wilder- 
ness, are its numberless lakes, which, like its mountain 
meadows, are scattered all over its surface, sleeping in quiet 
beauty in all its valleys. 

A boundless stretch of forest is grand, but when its som- 
ber shades are broken by the silver waters of a lake, its 
grandeur at once softens into the beautiful. 

In the Old World, the associations of centuries of human 
experience cluster around each lake and river, and they are 
linked to the past by a thousand pleasing or painful memo- 
ries. But here in this primeval wilderness, many of 
them are as new and fresh creations, so far as civilized man 
is concerned, as they were when left by the receding waters 
of the Primeval Ocean. No human blood or tears have 
ever been mingled with their waters. The wild fowl builds 
her nest near them, and there hatches her young brood ; 
the grey wolf comes tripping down the banks to drink ; the 
timid deer steps in to crop his juicy food ; the eagle rears 
her young on some steep jutting crag, or towering top- 
blasted tree ; the sleek otter slides in for his daily store of 
fisi^, and the panther's scream echoes around their lonely 



LAKES OF THE WILDERNESS. 8 I 

shores to-day, just as they all did when Abraham of old 
was receiving the promises, and Homer was tuning his im- 
mortal lyre. 



II. 

THEIR ROCKY BEDS. 

The lakes of the Wilderness, like its mountains, owe 
their existence to the extremely rugged, broken and corru- 
gated strata of its old Laurentian system of underlying 
rocks. The extreme hardness of these primitive rocks pre- 
vents their being worn away by the action of running water, 
while their rough and broken surface presents many bar- 
riers, which no time can crumble, to the free passage of the 
rivers and streams. Meeting these obstructions, which no 
washing can wear away, sometimes, in many places along 
their channels, the rivers spread out into many lakes, and 
chains of lakes, in their winding courses as they run down 
the slopes of the Wilderness. 

And now lake and lakelet sleep in their granite beds that 
were shaped for them when the rocky ground work of the 
wilderness plateau was folded into ranges and tumbled to- 
gether into mountain masses, in "the making of the world." 

Lake Ontario doubtless owes its great depth to the solid 
Laurentian barrier that crosses the bed of the St. Law- 
rence at the Thousand Islands. Were it not for this bar of 
flinty rocks, the ocean tide, instead of ceasing to be felt 
near Montreal, would ebb aifd flow up to the very foot of 
Niagara. 



82 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

III. 

THE LAKE BELT. 

Nearly all the larger and by far the greater number of 
the smaller lakes of the wilderness are found in its Lake 
Belt. This great belt, as stated in a previous chapter, is 
about thirty miles in width, and extends diagonally across 
the center of the Wilderness from north-east to south-west, 
between the Level Belt on the north, and the Mountain Belt 
on the south. 

In the Lake Belt we have at the north-east the Chazy and 
Upper Chateaugay lakes, the Upper and Lower Saranac, 
the St. Regis Lakes and Lake Placid. Centrally, we have 
the Raquette, the largest of all the lakes, Forked Lake, 
Beach's Lake, Smith's and Albany lakes, I^ittle and Big 
Tapper's. To the south-west there are the eight lakes of 
the Fulton chain. Moose Lake, and the Red Horse chain, 
and the Woodhull lakes. 

Cranberry Lake, Beaver Lake and Lake Francis at Number 
Four, Brantingham Lake, Bonaparte Lake, Chases Lake, 
and the Oswegatchie chain of lakes and ponds, all lie in the 
Level Belt of the Wilderness. 

The Lake Belt seems to be a depression in or a downward 
fold of the rocky strata of the Wilderness, which runs 
parallel with the great mountain ranges. Through the 
whole length of this depression there is a continuous suc- 
cession of lakes and streams that render its navigation 
possible from one end to the other. Should the hunter 
launch his skiff upon the waters of the Saranac river, which 
flow into Lake Champlain, he could pass up through the 
Lower and Upper Saranac Lakes, and out of their head 



LAKES OF THE WILDERNESS. 83 

waters into the head waters of Stoney Creek, a stream that 
runs into the Raquette River, by going overland only across 
the old Indian carry, which is but a mile in length. Once 
afloat upon the waters of the Raquette, he would find little 
difficulty in going up it into Long Lake, Forked Lake and 
Raquette Lake. From the Raquette he could pass up into 
its Brown's Tract Inlet, and then overland across another 
carry of only a mile and a quarter into the Fulton chain of 
eight lakes, whose waters flow through the Moose River 
into the Black River. Thus could he float his frail boat 
through the very heart of the Wilderness, and under the 
shadows of its highest mountain chain, without scarcely 
taking it from the water. 



IV. 

LAKES OF THE MOUNTAIN BELT. 

In the eastern part of the Mountain Belt are the beauti- 
ful lakes Scarron (Schroon) and Luzerne, which are already 
so much frequented by summer tourists, and in the northern 
part are Piseco and Pleasant lakes of the Sacondaga waters. 
Three miles above Lake Scarron, and in the same valley, is 
the curious Lake Paradox. The outlet of Lake Paradox 
flows into Scarron River, which in times of freshet is higher 
than the lake. At such times the water flows from the 
river into the lake, instead of from the lake into the river. 
This apparent running up stream of these waters, one of 
nature's paradoxes, gave rise to the name. Similar to this 
is Paradox Pond, near Lake Placid. Into this pond the 
waters of the lake ebb and flow through its outlet, which is 
also its inlet, with continuous throbbing, like the ocean tide. 



84 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

Lake Luzerne was named in honor of the Chevalier de la 
Luzerne, who was the first French minister to the United 
States. He was sent over by his government in 1779, and 
remained until 1783. He had great influence, and dis- 
charged the delicate and onerous duties of his important 
office with singular ability. This beautiful lake and moun- 
tain chain to which it gives its name are among the endur- 
ing monuments of our nation's gratitude to France for her 
priceless services in the war of the Revolution. 

In the very heart's core of the Wilderness, at the foot of 
the old giants of the Mountain Belt, Mounts Marcy, Mc- 
Intyre, Golden, Haystack, Skylight and Santanoni, are lo- 
cated the singular lakes Golden and Avalanche, and the 
lakes Sanford and Henderson, of sad memories. 

Lakes Golden and Avalanche lie near each other, be- 
tween Mounts Golden, Marcy and Mclntyre, and are the 
highest lakes of any considerable size in the Wilderness. 
Lake Avalanche is 2,856 feet, and Lake Golden is 2,770 
feet above tide. At such heights, and shut in by such 
mountain barriers, their still, clear, ice-cold waters glitter 
like mirrors in a land of shadows. In their chilly depths 
no living thing can exist except a species of small green 
lizard. Into Lake Avalanche, from time to time, vast land 
slides have rushed down from Mount Golden, half filling it 
with earth and rocks. One such avalanche came down as 
late as 1869, ploughing a deep gorge in the mountain's side, 
and nearly divided the lake into two parts. 

Near the foot of these weird lakes runs the wonderful 
Opalescent River, the highest easterly branch of the Hud- 
son. The Opalescent, a branch of which takes its rise in 
the high mountain pools Summit Water and Moss Lake, 



LAKES OF THE WILDERNESS. 85 

upon the sides of old Ta-ha-zcas, runs through one of 
the most wild and picturesque regions that can be found in 
the great woods. At one place it shoots through a narrow 
fissure in the rocks, or mountain gorge, of more than a mile 
in length. This gorge is called by the old hunters the 
" Flume of the Opalescent." The bed of the stream, which 
is formed of the hypersthene rock of the region, is full of 
crystals of opalescent feldspar. This is the exquisitely 
beautiful mineral Labradorite, which was first discovered 
by the Moravian missionaries in the Laurentian rocks in 
Labrador, and that when first taken by them to England 
brought such fabulous prices. In this wild mountain 
stream this brilliant gem is found in great profusion, shining 
through its clear waters with a marvellous play of colors. 

But this is not the only gem that flashes in the dark rocks 
of this region. Garnets, carnelians, sapphires, agates, ame- 
thysts, jasper, chalcedony, celestine and calcite light up the 
old rocks with their brilliant iridescence. 

The Lakes of the Wilderness, mentioned in this chapter, 
comprise only a few of those which are the most widely 
known and celebrated. The whole territory of the Wilder- 
ness is literally crowded with lakes unnumbered, and many 
of them still unnamed and unexplored, upon whose shores, 
says Colvin, there is no " mark of axe nor sign of man any- 
where." Colvin, in his Adirondack survey in 1S73 and in 
1874, found more than two hundred and fifty lakes and 
ponds, that had never been laid down upon any maps, in a 
small part of the Wilderness, 



86 ' NORTHERN NEW YORK. 



V. 

ALTITUDE OF LAKES AND FOREST STATIONS. 

A table showing, the height in feet above tide water of 
some of the lakes, summer resorts and forest stations in 
and near the Wilderness, mostly as computed by Verplanck 
Colvin in his Adirondack survey : 

Name. • Height. 

Adirondack Village 1,836 

Aiden Lair,. . . ; 1,700 

Au Sable Pond, (upper) 2,004 

*Arnold's, on Brown's Tract, 1,674 

Ampersand Pond, 2,078 

*Albany Lake, 1,688 

Beach's Lake, (Brandreth,) 1,913 

Beaver Meadow Pond, (source Oswegatchie) 2,193 

Blue Mountain Lake, 1,821 

*Ballston Spa, (R. R. Track) 277 

*Beaver Lake, (at Fenton's, Number Four) 1,409 

Bog Lake, i,755 

Boquet River, (at Elizabethtown) 496 

Boquet River, (Upland Valley, 2,425 

*Black River, (at Watertown,) 454 

*Carthage, (Black River, above Dam) 715 

Calamity Pond, 2,712 

Cedar Lake, 2,529 

Cedar River Settlement, 1,706 

*Chase's Lake, (Watson) 1,232 

Caraboo Pass, 3,662 

Charley Pond, (Beaver River) 1,720 

Dyke Falls, (Crossing) 2,788 

Elizabethtown, (river level) 496 

Elk Pass, 3,302 

Fairy Ladder Falls, , 3,iii 

*Fuller Summit, Galway, 1,032 

Fish House, on Sacondaga, 720 

Graves's Pond,. ... , i>795 

Grasse River Ford, i,452 

Great Plains, 1,637 

Harrington Pond, i,779 



LAKES OF THE WILDERNESS. 87 

*Hudson River, mouth Cedar River 1,454 

Indian Lake 1,705 

Iron Works, (Lower,) .... 1,805 

Jackson's Hotel, Cedar River, 1,706 

*Lake Ontario, 234 

Lake Placid, 1,615 

Lojig Lake, 1,620 

Lake Pleasant, . 1,615 

Lake Colden, 2,770 

Lake Avalanche 2,856 

Lost Lake, (Oswegatchie) 1,761 

f Lake George, 243 

f Lake Champlain, 69 

Moose Lake, 2,239 

Moss Lake, 4,312 

North Elba Bridge, 1,671 

f Oneida Lake, 369 

*Piseco Lake, 1,648 

Panther Gorge, 3.378 

Raquette Lake, 1,766 

Red Horse Chain, 1,756 

*Spruce Lake Summit, Hamilton county, 2,392 

Saranac Lake, (Upper) 1,605 

.Saranac Lake, (Lower) 1,556 

Silver Lake 1,983 

Smith's Lake, Beaver River, 1,774 

Summit Water Pond, 4,326 

Stillwater, Beaver River, 1,656 

Saratoga Springs, (R. R. Track) 306 

Tupper's Lake, .... i,554 

Tupper's Lake, (Little) i,737 

Wells Town, 1,016 

Wilmington Village, 1,058 

I 

* By A. F. ]?dwards, Chief Engineer Sackett's Harbor and Saratoga 

Railroad. 

f From Hough's Gazetteer. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE NAMING OF THE CHAZY RIVER. 

And dar'st thou then 
To beard the lion in his den, 
The Douglass in his hall ? 

— Sir Walter Scott. 

I. 

The Chazy River flows from the beautiful lake of the 
same name, northerly and easterly, and falls into the north- 
erly end of Lake Champlain, nearly opposite the Isle la 
Motte, of historic fame. The Chazy Lake sleeps at the 
foot of Mount Lyon, one of the central peaks of a mountain 
group of the Lake Belt of the Wilderness, on the rugged 
eastern border of Clinton county. This beautiful stream 
was named in memory of Sieur Chazy, a young French 
nobleman who was murdered on its banks, near its mouth, 
by the Lidians, in the year 1666. 

M. Chazy was a nephew of the Marquis de Tracy, Lieu- 
tenant General of Canada, and was a captain in the famous 
French regiment Carignan- Sailer es. This regiment was the 
first body of regular troops that was sent to Canada by the 
French king. It was raised by Prince Carignan, in Savoy, 
during the year 1644. Eight years after, it was conspicu- 
ous in the service of the French king, in the battles with 
Prifice Cond^ in the revolt of the Fronde. But the Prince 
of Carignan was unable to support the regiment and gave 
it to the king, who attached it to the armies of France. In 
1664 it took a distinguished part with the allied forces of 
France in the Austrian war with the Turks. The next year 



THE NAMING OF THE CHAZY RIVER. 89 

it went with Tracy to Canada. Among its captains, besides 
Chazy, were Sorel, Chambly, La Motte and others, whose 
names are so familiar in Canadian annals. The regiment 
was commanded by Colonel de Salieres — hence its double 
name.* 

In 1665 Tracy landed at Quebec in great pomp and splen- 
dor. The Chevalier de Chaumont was at his side, and a 
long line of young noblesse^ gorgeous in lace, ribbons, and 
majestic leoline wigs, followed in his train. As this splen- 
did array of noblemen marched through the narrow streets 
of the young city to the tap of drum, escorted by the Carig- 
nan-Salieres, "the bronzed veterans of the Turkish wars," 
each soldier with slouched hat, nodding plume, bandolier 
and shouldered fire-lock, they formed a glittering pageant 
such as the New World had never seen before. 

In the same year, the Captain Sieur La Motte built Fort 
St. Anne upon the Isle La Motte, at the north end of Lake 
Champlain, opposite the mouth of the Chazy River. Young 
Chazy was stationed at this fort in the spring of 1666, 
and while hunting in the woods near the mouth of the river 
with a party of officers, was surprised and attacked by a 
roving band of Iroquois. Chazy, with two or three others, 
was killed upon the spot, and the survivors captured and 
carried off prisoners to the valley of the Mohawk. For 
months the war raged with unabated violence, and the old 
wilderness was again drenched in blood, as it had been in 
the time of Father Jogues twenty years before. 

But in the August following a grand council of peace was 

held with the Irocjuois at Quebec. During the council, 

Tracy invited some Mohawk chiefs to dine with him. At 

* Parkman's Old Regim6, page 181. 
12 



go NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

the table some allusion was made to the murder of Chazy. 
A chief named Ag-ari-ata at once held out his arm, and 
boastingly said : 

"This is the hand that split the head of that young man." 

" You shall never kill anybody else," exclaimed the horror 
stricken Tracy, and ordered the insolent savage to be taken 
out and hanged upon the spot in sight of his comrades.* 

Of course, peace was no longer thought of. Tracy made 
haste to march against the Mohawks with all the forces at 
his command. During the month of September, Quebec 
on the St. Lawrence, and Fort St. Anne on the Isle La 
Motte, on Lake Champlain, were the scenes of busy prepar- 
ation. 

At length Tracy and the Governor, Courcelle, set out 
from Quebec on the day of the Exaltation of the Cross, 
"for whose glory," says the Relations, "this expedition is 
undertaken." They had with them a force of thirteen 
hundred men and two pieces of cannon. It was the be- 
ginning of October, and the forests were putting on the 
gorgeous hues of an American autumn. They went up 
Lake Champlain, and into Lake St. Sacrament, now Lake 
George. As their flotilla swept gracefully over the crystal 
waters of this gem of the old wilderness, it formed the first 
of the military pageants that in after years made that fair 
scene famous in history. 

Leaving their canoes where Fort William Henry was 
afterward built, they plunged boldly on foot into the south- 
ern wilderness that lay before them toward the Mohawk 
country. They took the old Indian trail so often trodden 
by the weary feet of Father Jogues, and by the war-parties 

* Parkman's Old Regim6, page 192. 



THE NAMING OF THE CHAZY RIVER. 91 

of savages, which led across the Hudson at the main bend 
above Glens Falls, and passed across the old Indian hunt- 
ing ground Kay-ad-ros-se-ra, through what are now the 
towns of Wilton, Greenfield and Galway, in Saratoga county, 
to the lower castles on the Mohawk river, near the mouth 
of the Schoharie creek. It was more than forty miles of 
forests, filled with swamps, rivers, and mountains, that lay 
before them. Their path was a narrow, rugged trail, filled 
with rocks and gullies, pitfalls and streams. Their forces 
consisted of six hundred regulars of the regiment Carignan- 
Sali^res, six hundred Canadian militia, and a hundred 
Christian Indians, from the missions. "It seems to them," 
writes Mother Marie de I'lncarnation, in her letter of the 
sixteenth of October, 1666, "that they are going to lay 
seige to Paradise, and win it, and enter in, because they 
are fighting for religion and the faith." 

On they went through the tangled woods, officers as well 
as men carrying heavy loads upon their backs, and dragging 
their cannon "over slippery logs, tangled roots and oozy 
mosses." Before long, in the vicinity of what is now known 
as Lake Desolation, their provisions gave out, and they were 
almost starved. But soon the trail led through a thick 
wood of chestnut trees, full of nuts, which they eagerly 
devoured, and thus stayed their hunger. 

At length, after many weary days, they reached the lower 
Mohawk cantons. The names of the two lower Mohawk 
castles were then Te-hon-de-lo-ga, which was at Fort Hunter, 
at the mouth of the Schoharie creek, and Ga-no-wa-ga, now 
Cach-na-wa-ga, which was near Tribes Hill. The upper 
castles, which were further up the Mohawk, were the Ca- 



92 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

na-jo-ha-ie, near Fort Plain, and Ga-ne-ga-ha-ga, opposite 
the mouth of East Canada Creek. 

They marched through the fertile valley of the Mohawk, 
the Indians fleeing into the forest at their approach. Thus 
the brilliant pageant of the summer that had glittered across 
the somber rock of Quebec, was twice repeated by this war- 
like band of noblemen and soldiers, amid the crimson 
glories of the autumn woods in the wild valley of the Mo- 
hawk. They did not need the cannon which they had 
brought with so much toil across the country from Lake St. 
St. Sacrament. The savages were frightened almost out of 
their wits by the noise of their twenty drums. "Let us 
save ourselves, brothers," said one of the Mohawk chiefs, 
as he ran away, "the whole world is coming against us." 

After destroying all the cornfields in the valley, and the 
last palisaded Mohawk village, they planted a cross on its 
ashes, and by the side of the cross the royal arms of France. 
Then an officer, by order of Tracy, advanced to the front, 
and, with sword in hand, proclaimed, in a loud voice, that 
he took possession in the name of the king of France of all 
the country of the Mohawks. 

Having thus happily accomplished their object without 
the loss of a man, they returned to Canada over the route 
by which they came. 

The death of young Chazy was avenged. The insolent 
Iroquois were for the first time chastised and humbled in 
their own country. For twenty years afterward there was 
peace in the old wilderness — peace bought by the blood of 
young Chazy. Surely was the river, on whose banks his 
bones still rest, christened with his name amid a baptism 
of fire at an altar upon which the villages, the wig-wams 



THE NAMING OF THE CHAZY RIVER. 93 

and the cornfields of his murderers were the sacrificial 
offerings. 

And so ended the second French and Indian war, known 
in colonial annals as the war of 1666. 



CHAPTER XI. 

RIVERS OF THE WILDERNESS. 

Ah, beautiful river, 

Flow onward forever ! 
Thou art grander than Avon, and sweeter than Ayr ; 

If a tree has been shaken. 

If a star has been taken, 
In thy bosom we look — bud and Pleiad are there ! 

— Benjamin F. Taylor. 

I. 

CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES. 

A singular characteristic seems to mark all the rivers that 
flow in and around Northern New York. All of them with 
one exception — the Mohawk — flow from and through great 
chains or systems of lakes. The great river St. Lawrence, 
flowing from its own vast continental system of lakes, seems 
to be the prototype and pattern of all the others. 

The Oswego river runs from and drains the Oneida, the 
Cayuga, and the others of the system of lakes so famous in 
Western New York. The River Richelieu drains Lakes 
George and Champlain. The Hudson and its sister streams 
that take their rise among its mountain masses, serve to 
drain the waters of the numberless lakes that lie within 
the shades of the Great Wilderness. 

IL 

THE HUDSON. 

" The broadest, brightest river of the world." 

— Frances A nne Kentble. 

The Hudson is fed by a system of forest branches that 
spread over the whole of the Mountain Belt of the Wilder- 
ness. Its main forest branches are the Opalescent, the 



RIVERS OF THE WILDERNESS. 95 

Boreas, the Scarron (Schroon), the Jessups, the Indian, the 
Cedar, and the Sacondaga. The Mohawks called the Hud- 
son Ska-nen-ia-de, "the river beyond the open woods." Be- 
tween the Mohawk river at Schenectady and the Hudson 
at Albany was the great Indian carrying place which led 
through the open pine woods. The Hudson was therefore 
" the river beyond the openings," to the Iroquois. Its Al- 
gonquin name, however, was Ca-ho-ta-tc-a^ " the river that 
comes from the mountains." Henry Hudson, its discov- 
erer, translating its Algonquin name, also called it the 
" River of the Mountains." The early Dutch settlers on 
its banks called it " The Nassau," after the reigning family 
of Holland, and sometimes " The Mauritius," from the 
Stadtholder Prince Maurice. It was first called the Hud- 
son, in honor of its immortal explorer, by his English coun- 
trymen after they had conquered the country and wrested 
it from the Dutch, in 1664. But of all its names, none is 
more significant than its old Algonquin one, " The River of 
the Mountains." 

The Hudson is born among the clouds on the shaggy 
side of Mount Mclntyre, and in the mountain meadows 
and lakelets near the top of Tahawas^ almost five thou- 
sand feet above the level of the sea. It is cradled in 
the awful chasms of the Indian Pass, the Panther Gorge, 
and the Gorge of the Dial. After thus rising upon its high- 
est mountain peaks, it crosses in its wild course down the 
southern slope of the Wilderness no less than four immense 
mountain chains that all seem to give way at its approach, 
as if it were some wayward, favorite child of their own. 
After bursting through the Luzerne or Palmertown range, 
its last forest mountain barrier, it encounters in its course 



96 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

to the sea the great Apalachian system of mountains, and 
seems to rend them in twain from top to bottom. Or rather, 
old Ocean reaches up one of his throbbing arms through 
this Apalachian chain for a distance of one hundred and fifty 
miles to the city of Troy, to meet there this river, his wild 
forest mountain child. Thus from Troy, the head of tide- 
water, the mountain-born Hudson is virtually an estuary or 
arm of the sea, floating the navies and the commerce of the 
world upon its peaceful bosom. 



III. 

THE RIVERS THAT FALL INTO LAKE CHAMPLAIN. 

Among the rivers that fall into Lake Champlain along 
the eastern border of the Wilderness, are the Boquet, the 
Au Sable, the Saranac and the Chazy. 

The Boquet River rises in the deep gorge of the Hunter's 
Pass, which lies across the Boquet Mountain range, between 
Mouns Dix and Nipple Top. The bottom of this mountain 
gorge is 3,247 feet above the level of the sea, and in it also 
rises the Scarron River, that flows in a contrary direction 
into the Hudson. 

The Boquet, which like the Scarron, gives its name to one 
of the five mountain ranges of the Wilderness, it is said 
derives its name from the French word baquet^ a trough. 
This was suggested by the fancied resemblance of the con- 
tour of its bed and banks to a trough in the estuary at its 
mouth. It was in this estuary of the Boquet River that 
Gen. Burgoyne rested his army for some days, in the month 
of July, 1777, and made his celebrated treaty with his In- 
dian allies. It is also said that this river was first called 



RIVERS OF THE WILDERNESS. 97 

the Bouquet River by William Gilliland, on account of the 
wonderful profusion of bright wild flowers which he found 
adorning its banks. Gilliland attempted to found a baronial 
manor on the banks of the Boquet during the last century, 
an account of which is given further on in these pages. 

The Au Sable, the twin sister of the Hudson in the awful 
abyss of the Indian Pass, was named by the French in al- 
lusion to its sandy bed near its mouth, from sable, the French 
word, as the reader knows, for sand, gravel, &c. 

How significant the old Indian names were of the twin 
sister streams, which rise together on some mountain height 
and separating, flow off in opposite directions to their com- 
mon mother the sea, is shown in another part of the state, 
where we find as an example, the Chii-te-tian-go, meaning 
"the river flowing north," and the Che-nan-go, "the water 
going south." 

On the head waters of the Au Sable, under the shadows 
of the old giants of the Adirondack range, lies the little 
mountain hamlet of North Elba, now so famous as the 
forest home of John Bro\Kn, of Ossawottamie memory. 

On this river, three miles from Port Kent, is the cele- 
brated Au Sable chasm, that is so much frequented by 
tourists. 

The Saranac flows from the chain of lakes of that name, 
which are already so famous as a summer resort. The 
name on all the old French maps, without exception, is 
written, Sa-la-sa-nac . 

The Chazy river owes its name to a tragic incident which 
occurred on its banks, in early colonial times, that led to 
important events in the history of the country.* 

* See Chapter X. 
13 



98 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

IV. 

THE RIVERS THAT FLOW INTO THE ST. LAWRENCE. 

Among the rivers that flow through the Level Belt of the 
Wilderness and down its northern slope into the St. Law- 
rence, the principal are the Chateaugay, the Salmon, the 
St. Regis, the Raquette, the Grasse, the Oswegatchie, and 
the Indian river. 

The Chateaugay, whose old Indian name was 0-sar-he- 
hon, a narrow gorge, and which rises in the lake of the 
same name, runs into the St. Lawrence near Montreal. It 
was named from a chateau called the gay chateau, or chd- 
teau-gai, that stood on the bank of the St. Lawrence, at its 
mouth. 

The Indian name of the Salmon River was Gan-je-ah-go- 
na-ne, " Sturgeon River." 

The St. Regis River, which also rises in a lake of its 
name, was called by the Indians Ah-qua-stcs-ne, " the place 
where the partridge drums," in allusion to the rumbling 
sound heard under the ice upon some parts of this stream 
during the winter. 

The name Raquette is a French word, meaning snow- 
shoe. This name was suggested, says Dr. Hough, by the 
shape of a morass or wild meadow at its mouth, and was 
first applied to the river by a Frenchman named Parisein 
in the early days of the French occupancy. The Indian 
name of the Raquette was Ta-na-wa-de/i, "swift water." 

The Grasse River was so named by the French from the 
numerous wild meadows found near its mouth. It was 
called by the Indians Ni-keni-si-a-ke^ " the place where 
many fishes live." It was among the upper branches of the 



RIVERS OF THE WILDERNESS. 99 

Grasse River that the tract of wild land lay which was 
bought on speculation at the beginning of this century, by 
Madame de Stael, the celebrated French author. Her 
tract was purchased for her in trust by her friend and agent, 
Gouverneur Morris. It was located in township No. Six, or 
Clare, which is now in the northerly part of the town of 
Pierrepont, St. Lawrence county. In 1846 it was sold by 
direction of her only heir, .Ada Holstein de Stael, wife of 
the Due de Broglie, to S. Pratt and John L. Russell.* 

The Oswegatchie, in the Indian tongue 0-swa-gatch, 
means " the river that runs around the hills." This has 
reference to the great bends, or " ox-bows," it forms in its 
course. 

The Indian River is called on Morgan's map the 0-je- 
(jiiack, "the River of Nuts." It runs through Black Lake 
into the Oswegatchie. 

V. 

THE BLACK RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 

The Black River, whose Iroquois name was Ka-/iu-a/i-go, 
bounds the Great Wilderness plateau of Laurentian rocks, 
on the west, and its valley bounds the Lesser Wilderness on 
the east. 

The principal confluents that enter the Black River from 
the Great Wilderness, are the Moose, the Otter Creek, the 
Independence, and the Beaver. 

The Moose River, whose Indian name was Te-ka-hun-di- 
a/i-do, " clearing an opening," rises near the Raquette Lake 
in the centre of the wilderness, and winds through and 

* Hough's Hist. St. Lawrence and Franklin counties, p. 429. 



lOO NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

forms the celebrated Eight Lakes of the Fulton chain. 
The Moose passes in its course the hunting station known 
to all frequenters of the woods as Arnold's, or the Old 
Forge, on Brown's Tract. This secluded spot has long 
been famous in forest stor)- as the scene of John Brown's 
fruitless attempt at settlement, of the failure and tragic 
death of his son-in-law Herreshoff, of the exploits of the 
Hunter Foster and his victim the Indian Drid, and of the 
life-long home of Otis Arnold, the hunter and guide. 

The Independence River rises near the Eight Lakes of 
the Fulton chain and runs into Black River in the town of 
Watson, Lewis county, between the Moose River and the 
Beaver River. In its course, this river crosses the tract of 
wild land known to land specul-ators as Watson's West Tri- 
angle. The Independence River was so named in honor of 
our national holiday by Pierre Pharoux, the engineer and 
surveyor of Castorland. Near the south- bank of the Inde- 
pendence, not far from the old Watson house, is Chase's 
Lake. This lake has long been a favorite resort, and is one 
of the most accessible in the Wilderness for the invalid or 
pleasure seeker. The Indian name of Otter creek is Da- 
wa?i-net — "the otter." It runs into the Black river between 
the Moose and the Independence. 

The Indian name for Beaver River is Ne-ha-sa-ne, "cross- 
ing on a log." It rises in the heart of the wilderness to 
the north of Raquette lake, and running in its course 
through Smith's lake, Albany lake, and Beaver lake, waters 
the territory of ancient Castorland, the seat of French in- 
fluence on the Black river. Beaver lake, an expansion of 
this river at Number Four, a famous summer resort, is one 
of the most charming lakes in the wilderness. 



RIVERS OF THE WILDERNESS. lOl 

VI. 

WILDERNESS TRIBUTARIES OF THE MOHAWK. 

The Mohawk River, whose Indian name was Te-nge-ga, 
runs along the whole southern border of the Great Wilder- 
ness, but rises in the Lesser Wilderness, to the north of 
Oneida lake. Its principal tributaries from the north, how- 
ever, take their rise in the heart of the Great Wilderness, in 
the region of the Raquette lake. They are the East and 
West Canada creeks. Upon the West Canada creek are the 
famous Trenton Falls, one of the principal attractions of 
Northern New York, so often visited by summer tourists. 
The Indian name for Trenton Falls was Date-wa-simt-ha-go 
— "Great Falls," and for Canada creek was Kan-a-ta, mean- 
ing "Amber River," in allusion to the color of its waters. 

This completes the list of the principal rivers which flow 
in and around Northern New York and its Great Wilder- 
ness. 



CHAPTER XII. 

LA FAMINE AND THE LESSER WILDERNESS. 

By la Riviere de la Famine^ ocean tried and travel sore, 
They upreared a rustic altar, tapestried with mosses o'er. 
Crucifix they set upon it where the oak tree's shadow fell 
Lightly o'er the lighted taper, 'mid the sweet TV Deiun^ s swell. 

Never Dojninus Vobiscum falling upon human ears 
Made so many heart-strings quiver, filled so many eyes with tears, 
The Good Shepherd gave his blessing — even red men gathered there, 
Felt the sacrifice of Jesus in his first thanksgiving prayer. 

— Caleb Lyon of Lyonsdale. 



ITS LOCATION. 

Among the problematical places of the olden time in 
Northern New York, whose names were once familiar in 
European circles but are seldom heard in modern story, no 
one was once more famous than La Famine. 

Two hundred years ago, La Famine was a well-known 
stopping-place upon the eastern shore of Lake Ontario for 
the weary hunter and the bold explorer, and the spot where 
even armies encamped, and the ambassadors of hostile 
nations met in solemn council. To-day its name can only 
be found on the historic page, and in old maps and musty 
records, while its locality is often a matter of controversy. 
The ancient Indian landing-place and camping-ground 
known to the French as La Famine, was situated on the 
shore of Famine Bay, now called Mexico Bay, in the south- 
east corner of Lake Ontario, at the mouth of La Famine 
River, now known as Salmon River. 

The Salmon River, the ancient French La Famine and 
the Lidian Ga-Iien-wa-ga^ rises in the central part of the 
plateau of the Lesser Wilderness, in the south-west corner 



LA FAMINE AND THE LESSER WILDERNESS. I 03 

of Lewis county, and runs westerly through the northern 
part of Oswego county into Lake Ontario. 

The Lesser Wilderness, like Couch-sac/i-ra-gi\ the Greater 
Wilderness, was one of the beaver hunting countries of the 
Iroquois. The key to this hunting ground of the Lesser 
Wilderness from the west was the Salmon river. On their 
way to the hunting ground through Lake Ontario, the west- 
ern Indians landed at the mouth of this river, and their 
trail then led up its banks. 

La Famine then was the ancient seaport of this famous 
hunting ground of the Lesser Wilderness, and was situated 
near what is now the village of Mexico. The Indian name 
for this entre-pot of theirs was Ga-hen-wa-ga. Hence we 
find on a map of New France, published by Marco Vin- 
cenzo Coronelli, in 1688, this place put down at the mouth 
of what is now known as the Salmon River, but in his map 
it is called la Famine Rivcrc. It bears the following in- 
scription : " Cah-ihon-oiia-ghe ou la Famine, lieu ou la plus 
part des Iroquois des barcpient pour aller en traitte du 
Castor," which may be tr^anslated thus : Ga-hcii-wa-ga^ or 
La Famine, the place where the greater part of the Iroquois 
embarked to go upon the trail of the beaver. 



II. 

THE LESSER WILDERNESS. 

The Lesser Wilderness of Northern New York is situated 
upon the long narrow plateau which stretches first westerly 
and then northerly from the Upper Mohawk valley and the 
Oneida Lake almost to the city of Watertown. It lies be- 
tween Lake Ontario on the west and the valley of the 



I04 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

Black River on the east. The rocky ground work of this 
plateau is composed of level strata of limestone and slate 
which rise in a series of terraces of a mile or two in 
width from its borders into a high level table land. Upon 
the central part of this table land, which has an elevation 
of near two thousand feet above the level of the sea, are 
situated the forests, swamps, marshes and wild meadows of 
the Lesser Wilderness. 

Numerous streams take their rise in the swamps and wild 
meadows of this region. Down the southern slope of this 
ridge of highlands the Mohawk, which rises in the Lesser 
Wilderness, flows first southerly and then easterly toward 
the Hudson. The Fish Creek and other streams run into 
Oneida Lake. 

On its western border, the Salmon River, once La Famine, 
the Sandy Creek, once the Au Sable, and other streams, 
run into Lake Ontario. 

Down the more regular terraces of its western slope, 
locally called Tug Hill, the streams which rise in the 
swamps of the Lesser Wilderness hurry in a series of falls 
and cascades into the Black River, wearing deep chasms in 
the yielding rocks along their courses. Among these 
streams are the Deer River, which is the Indian Ga-ne-ga- 
to-da, (pounding corn) the Silvermine, the Martins, the 
Whetstone and other Creeks. 

This Lesser Wilderness was one of the most famous 
hunting grounds of the Indian. Its woods were literally 
fi>lled with game, and its streams with fish. La Hontan 
says that there were so many salmon in La Famine River 
that they often brought up a hundred at one cast of the net. 

The deer came across the valley of the Black River from 



LA FAMINE AND THE LESSER WILDERNESS. I05 

the Great Wilderness, every spring, in droves to feed upon 
the luxuriant summer herbage, and returned every autumn 
to escape the deep snows of the Lesser Wilderness. Their 
runways were along the valleys of the Deer River, the 
Sugar River and other streams, which as before stated run 
down the eastern slope of the Lesser Wilderness into the 
Black River. The deer were caught in great numbers by 
the early settlers of the Black River valley, during this 
half-yearly migration. 

The forests of the Lesser Wilderness have always been 
favorite nesting places for the wild pigeons. Even now-a- 
days these birds often build their nests in these woods, in 
countless myriads, over miles in extent. The Lesser Wil- 
derness has always been celebrated for its deep snows. 
The snow in March and April is almost always six or seven 
feet in depth. The present season, 1876, the snow was 
three feet in depth over the Lesser Wilderness on the first 
day of May. 

IIL 

ORIGINAL BIRTH PLACE OF THE IROQUOIS. 

It is an old tradition of the Iroquois that the Lesser 
Wilderness was the original birth place or Eden of their 
race. It is a well known mythical story of the Iroquois 
that their race once dwelt in a subterranean world, which 
was at first a vast chaos, but which by degrees came to be 
a solid area of sea and land, like the upper earth. 

In the course of time their great sachem Hi-a-wat-ha 

came to their relief, and enabled them to crawl up out of 

their dark abode into the bright sunshine and pleasant 
14 



I06 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

hunting grounds of the world in which we now live. After 
coming into their new abode, Hi-a-wat-ha made for them 
bows and arrows and taught them how to hunt their game. 
He gave them corn, squashes, beans and tobacco, and 
showed them how to raise their crops. 

According to their traditions, the place of their people's 
birth, or where they came out of the ground, was in the 
Lesser Wilderness, somewhere between the head waters of 
the Salmon River — La Famine, and those of Sandy Creek 
— Au Sable. 

The French author Pouchot, in his memoirs, after min- 
utely describing the shores of Lake Ontario and its tribu- 
taries, coming to Sandy Creek, makes the following curious 
statement in regard to its head waters. 

" Between the River Au Sable and La Famine is a little 
stream called by the Indians Canogatiron. The River Au 
Sable, in Lidian Eteataragarence, is remarkable in this that 
at the head of its south branch, called Tecanonononaroncsi, 
is the place where the traditions of the Iroquois fix as the 
spot from whence they all issued, or rather according to 
their ideas, where they were born." His remarks confirm 
the existence of this old tradition. 



IV. 

THE COUNCIL OF DE LA BARRE AND THE IROQUOIS. 

But La Famine derives its chief historical importance 
from its having been the scene of the celebrated council 
held in the month of September, 1684, by Le Febru de la 
Barre, the Governor General of Canada, with the embassa- 
dors of the Five Nations. 



LA FAMINE AND THE LESSER WILDERNESS. 107 

The Senecas had been lately attacking and pillaging the 
French canoes in the far western waters, and to obtain re- 
dress De la Barre raised an army and set out from Quebec 
on the 9th day of July in that year, by way of the St. Law- 
rence River and Lake Ontario, to make war upon the of- 
fending savages. His forces consisted of five hundred 
forest rangers and three hundred christian Iroquois. He 
reached Montreal on the i6th of July, and after a toil- 
some journey by land around the rapids, he arrived at La 
Galette, which was at the rapid and portage on the St. Law- 
rence next below Ogdensburgh, on the 15th of August. On 
the 2ist he proceeded on his voyage. In his report he 
says : " Finally on the 21st my canoes arrived with what 
I sent them for. I set to work immediately with all possi- 
ble diligence to have bread and biscuit baked, and sent off 
forthwith the king's troops, D'Orvillier's and Dugu^s' two 
brigades and two hundred christian savages to encamp at 
La Famine, a port favorable for fishing and hunting, four 
leagues from Onontagu^, so as to be nearer the enemy and 
to be able to refresh ourselves by fishing and the chase." 

Further on in his report he continues : "After having 
been beaten by bad weather and high wind, we arrived in 
two days at La Famine. I found there tertian and double 
tertian fever, which broke out among our people, so that 
more than one hundred and fifty men were attacked by it. 
I had also left some of them at the fort,* which caused me 
to despatch, on arriving, a christian savage to Onontagu^ 
to M. Lemoine, to request him to cause the instant departure 
of those who were to come to meet me, which he did with 
so much diligence, though he and his children were sick, 

* Fort Frontenac, at Catarocuoi, now Kingston. 



I08 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

that he arrived as early as the 3d of September, with four- 
teen deputies, nine from Onontagu^, three from Oneida, 
and two Cayugas, who paid me their respects, and whom I 
entertained the best manner I was able, postponing until 
to-morrow the talk about business, at which matters were 
fully discussed and peace concluded after six hour's delib- 
eration, three in the morning and as many after dinner. 
Father Brias speaking for us and Ha-ta-wa-te and Gara- 
gon-kier for the Iroquois ; Te-gan-cout, a Seneca, was pres- 
ent, the other Senecas not daring to come, in order not to 
displease Col. Pongan, (the English governor,) who sent to 
promise them a reinforcement of four hundred horse and 
four hundred foot if we attacked. The treaty was con- 
cluded in the evening, on the conditions annexed, and I 
promised to decamp the next day, and withdraw my troops 
from this vicinity, which I was indeed obliged to do by the 
number of sick which had augmented to such a degree 
that it was with difficulty I found enough of persons in 
health to remove the sick to the canoes, besides the scarcity 
of provisions, having no more than the trifle of bread that 
I brought them."* 

But to continue my narrative : Two days after the arrival 
of the Iroquois at La Famine they gave notice to M. de la 
Barre that they were ready for the council. De la Barre 
sat in his chair of state, with his officers on either hand. 
To the eastward of him sat Ha-ta-wa-te^ the Grangula, the 
orator of the Indians, clad in his rich robes of beaver and 
otter furs, at the head of his men. His pipe was in his 
mouth and the great calumet of peace lay before him. 

The Grangula was very attentive to the interpreter as he 

* Doc. Hist, of New York, vol. I, p. 114. 



LA FAMINE AND THE LESSER WILDERNESS. 109 

delivered the speech of M. de la Barre. In his speech, M. 
de la Barre, in a haughty way, told the Iroquois that his 
king had sent him to smoke with them the pipe of peace, 
but on the condition that they make reparation for past 
offences, and give assurance of future good conduct ; other- 
wise war was positively proclaimed. After the French 
speech was finished, the Grangula arose, walked slowly five 
or six times around the ring formed by the council, and re- 
turned to his place. Then standing erect, he looked up to 
the sun for a moment, as if by way of invocation. He then 
spoke to the Governor-General as follows : 

" Onnontio, I honor you, and all the warriors that are 
with me do the same. Your interpreter has made an end 
of his discourse, and now I come to begin mine. My voice 
glides to your ear ; pray listen to my words. 

" Onnontio, in setting out from Quebec you must needs 
have fancied that the scorching beams of the sun had 
burnt down the forests which render our country unacces- 
sible to the French, or else that the inundations of the lake 
had surrounded our castles and confined us as prisoners. 
This certainly was your thought ; and it could be nothing 
else but the curiosity of seeing a burnt or drowned country 
that moved you to undertake a journey hither. But now 
you have an opportunity of being undeceived, for I and my 
warlike retinue come to assure you that the Senecas, Ca- 
yugas, Onondagas, Oneidas and Mohawks are not yet des- 
troyed. I return you thanks in their name for bringing 
into their country the calumet of peace that your predeces- 
sor received from their hands. At the same time, I con- 
gratulate your happiness in having left underground the 



no NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

bloody axe that has so often been dyed with the blood of 
the French. 

" I must tell you, Onnontio, I am not asleep ; my eyes 
are open, and the sun that vouchsafes the light gives me a 
clear view of a great captain at the head of a troop of sol- 
diers who speaks as if he were asleep. He pretends that 
he does not approach to this lake with any other view than 
to smoke with the Onondagas in the great calumet ; but 
the Grangula knows better things ; he sees plainly that the 
Onnontio meant to knock them on the head if the French 
arms had not been so much weakened. 

" I perceive that the Onnontio raves in a camp of sick 
people, whose lives the Great Spirit has saved by visiting 
them with infirmities. Do you hear, Onnontio, our w6- 
men had taken up their clubs, and the children and the old 
men had visited your camp with their bows and arrows, if 
our warriors had not stopped and disarmed them when Ak- 
oues-sa/i, your messenger, appeared before our village } But 
I have done ; I will talk no more of that. * * 

" This Belt comprehends my words. 

"We have conducted the English to our lakes in order 
to traffic with the Ottawas, just as the Algonquins conduct- 
ed the French to our five cantons to carry on a commerce 
that the English lay claim to as their right. We are born 
freemen, and have no dependence either upon the Onnon- 
tio or the Corlear. We have a power to go where we 
please, to conduct who we will to the places we resort to, 
and to buy and sell where we think fit. If your allies are 
your slaves or children, you may even treat them as such. 

" This Belt comprehends my words. 

" We fell upon the Illinois and the Miamis because they 



LA FAMINE AND THE LESSER WILDERNESS. I I I 

cut down the trees of peace that served for limits or boun- 
daries to our frontiers. They came to hunt beavers upon 
our lands, and contrary to the custom of all the Indians, 
have carried off whole stocks both male and female. We 
have done less than the English and the French, who with- 
out any right have usurped the grounds they are now pos- . 
sessed of. 

" This Belt contains my words. 

" 1 give you to know, Onnontio, that my voice is the 
voice of the five Iroquois cantons. This is their answer ; 
pray incline your ear and listen to what they present. The 
Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas and Mohawks de- 
clare that they buried the axe at Catarocoui, in the pres- 
ence of your predecessor, in the very centre of the fort, 
and planted the tree of peace in the same place that it 
might be carefully preserved ; that it was then stipulated 
that the fort should be used as a place of retreat for mer- 
chants and not a refuge for soldiers ; and that instead of 
arms and ammunition it should be made a receptacle of 
only beaver skins and merchandise goods. Be it known to 
you, Onnontio, that for the future you ought to take care 
that so great a number of martial men as I now see, being 
shut up in so small a fort, do not stifle and choke the tree 
of peace. Since it took root so easily it must needs be of 
pernicious consequence to stop its growth, and hinder it to 
shade both your country and ours with its leaves. 

"I do assure you in the name of the Five Nations, that 
our warriors shall dance the calumet dance under its 
branches; that they shall rest in tranquility upon their mats, 
and will never dig up the axe to cut down the tree of peace 
until such time as Onnontio or Corlear do either jointly or 



I I 2 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

separately offer to invade the country that the Great Spirit 
has disposed of in the favor of our ancestors. 

" This Beh contains my word, and the other comprehends 
the power granted to me by the Five Nations."* 

The treaty of peace being concluded, M. de la Barre re- 
.embarked in haste, and returned with his sick and famished 
army to Quebec. The feathered and painted Iroquois 
jumped into their canoes, and soon appeared like mere 
specks on the bounding waves of Lake Ontario, as they 
sped on their way to the mouth of the Oswego River that 
led to their castles on the shores of the beautiful lakes of 
Western New York. 



V. 

VISIT OF CHARLEVOIX. 

In the year 1720, Pierre Fran9ois Xavier de Charlevoix, 
the celebrated French traveller, and historian of New 
France, while on a voyage through the great lakes was 
storm-bound for several days at La Famine. From this 
place he dates one of his letters to Madame de Lesdi- 
gui^res, from which I make an extract below. The reader 
must bear in mind that from Fort Frontenac at Catarocoui, 
now Kingston, as the old explorers dare not venture in 
their frail canoes far out into the open lake, Father Charle- 
voix's route was along the coast, first down the British 
channel and around Wolfe Island and then up the American 
channel to the Isle aux Chevreuils, now Carleton Island. 
From Carleton Island he went around Stony Point in Hen- 

* Letter of Baron La Hontan, of the 2d Nov., 1684, in Pinkerton, 
vol. XIIL page 271. 



LA FAMINE AND THE LESSER WILDERNESS. I 13 

derson, called by him Point de la Traverse, to Famine Bay, 
now Mexico Bay. 

"Famine Bay, i6th May, 1720. 
" Madame : I have the misfortune to be detained here 
by a contrary wind which in appearance will last a long 
time and keep me in one of the worst places in the world. 
I shall amuse myself with writing to you. Whole armies 
of those pigeons they call Tourtes pass by here continually. 
If one of them could carry my letter you would perhaps 
have news of me before I leave this place. But the Indians 
never thought of bringing up pigeons for this purpose, as 
they say the Arabs and many other nations formerly did. 
I embarked the 14th, exactly at the same hour I arrived at 
Catarocoui [Kingston] the evening before. I had but six 
leagues to go to the Isle aux Chevrcuils [Roe-Bucks, now 
Carleton Island,] where there is a pretty port that can re- 
ceive large barques, but my Canadians had not examined 
their canoe, and the sun had melted the gum of it in many 
places. It took water everywhere, and I was forced to lose 
two whole hours to repair it in one of the islands at the en- 
trance of Lake Ontario. After that we sailed till ten o'clock 
at night without being able to reach the Isle aux Chevreuils, 
and we were obliged to pass the rest of the night in the 
corner of the forest. 

" This was the first time I perceived some vines in the 
wood. There were almost as many as trees, to the top of 
which they rise. I had not yet made this remark because I 
had always till then stopped in open places, but they assure 
me it is the same everywhere, quite to Mexico. The stocks 
of these vines are very large, and they bear many bunches 
of grapes, but the grapes are scarcely so big as a pea ; and 
15 



114 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

this must be so, as the vines are not cut nor cultivated. 
When they are ripe it is a good manna for the bears, who 
seek them at the top of the highest trees. They have, 
nevertheless, but the leavings of the birds, who have soon 
gathered the vintage of whole forests. I set out early 
the next morning, and at eleven o'clock I stopped at the 
Isle aux Gallots [now Gallop Island,] three leagues beyond 
the Isle mix Chevres [now Grenadier Island] in latitude 

43" 30'. 

" I re-embarked about noon, and made a traverse of a 
league and a half to gain the Point de la Traverse [now 
Stony Point]. If to come hither from the place where I 
passed the night I had been obliged to coast the continent, 
I should have had above forty leagues to make; and we must 
do this when the lake is very calm, for if it is the least agi- 
tated the waves are as high as in the open sea. It is not 
even possible to sail under the coast when the wind blows 
hard from the lake. 

" From the point of the Isle aux Gallots we see to the 
west the river Chouguen [Oswego], otherwise called the 
River crO/uiontagiie which is fourteen leagues off. As the 
lake was calm and there was no appearance of bad weather, 
and we had a little wind at east, which was but just enough 
to carry a sail, I resolved to make directly for this river, 
[the Oswego,] that I might save fifteen or twenty leagues in 
going round. My conductors, who had more experience 
than myself, judged it a dangerous attempt, but out of com- 
plaisance they yielded to my opinion. 

" The beauty of the country which I quitted on the left hand 
did not tempt me any more than the salmon and numbers 
of other excellent fish which they take in six fine rivers, 



LA FAMINE AND THE LESSER WILDERNESS. I I 5 

which are two or three leagues distant one from the other.* 
We took to the open lake, and till four o'clock we had no 
cause to repent of it, but then the wind rose suddenly, and 
we would willingly have been nearer shore. We made to- 
ward the nearest, from which we were then three leagues 
off, and we had much trouble to make it. 

"At length, at seven at night, we landed at Famine Bay, 
thus named since the M. de la Barre, Governor General of 
New France, had like to have lost all his army here by hun- 
ger and disease, going to make war with the Iroquois. "f 

Almost two hundred years have passed away since M. de 
la Barre and Father Charlevoix enlivened the then savage 
scene by their presence. The summer tourist of to-day, as 
he passes by steamer near the site of the ancient La Famine 
(now Port Ontario), on his way from Niagara to the Thou- 
sand Islands will perhaps read with interest these reminis- 
cences of the olden time relating to the St. Lawrence River, 
the ancient Ho-chc-la-ga^ and to the shores of Lake Ontario, 
the " Beautiful Lake " of the Iroquois. 

* Note to original : " The River of the Assumtion [now Stony Creek 
in Henderson] a league from the point of Traverse ; that of Sables [now 
Sandy Creek], three leagues further ; that of la Planche [now Little San- 
dy Creek], two leagues further ; that of la grand Famine [now Salmon 
River,] two leagues more." 

f Charlevoix's Voyage to North America, vol. I, p. 173, Dublin edition 
of 1756. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

TRYON COUNTY. 

" Still in your prostrate land there shall be some 

Proud hearts, the shrines of Freedom's vestal flame. 

Long trains of ill may pass unheeded dumb, 

But Vengeance is behind and Justice is to come." 

I. 

BOUNDARIES. 

In the crowded annals of the state of New York there 
floats another ahuost mythical name which, like La Famine, 
for nearly a century has had no " local habitation." That 
name is Tryon county, whose story during the long and 
weary twelve years of its actual existence, is a story that is 
written in characters of blood. 

For a long period previous to the year 1772, which was 
the birth .year of Tryon county, the whole northern and 
western part of what is now the state of New York, that 
lay to the north and west of the county of Ulster, was in- 
cluded in the county of Albany. In the spring of that 
year the county of Albany was divided by the Colonial 
Government. In the first place they set off the county of 
Tryon, naming it in honor of William Tryon, who was then 
Governor of the province. They then set off the county 
of Charlotte, which was named in honor of the Princess 
Charlotte, the eldest daughter of George III. 

The bounds of Tryon county were fixed as follows : 
The easterly line began at a point on the Canadian border, 
near the Indian mission of St. Regis, and ran due south 
through the Upper Saranac Lake, and along the westerly 





7. 




VAi, 



TRYON COUNTY. I 17 

bounds of what are now Essex, Warren and Saratoga coun- 
ties, until it struck the Mohawk river about ten miles west 
of the city of Schenectady. From the Mohawk it turned 
south-westerly around what is now Schenectady county, 
and then again southerly through the center of what is now 
Schoharie county to the Mohawk branch of the Delaware 
River. Thence down that stream to the north-east corner 
of Pennsylvania. Tryon county included the whole of the 
province of New York that lay to the west of this line. It 
was two hundred miles wide along this eastern border, and 
stretched out westward three hundred miles to Lake Erie. 
Better had it been called an empire. 

The county of Charlotte included all the northern part 
of the state of New York that lies easterly of the Tryon 
county line, and northerly of what are now Saratoga and 
Rensselaer counties. Charlotte county also included the 
westerly half of the disputed territory which is now in the 
state of Vermont, then known as the New Hampshire 
Grants. 

11. 

SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON. 

The shire-town of this immense county of Tryon was 
Johnstown, near the Mohawk, the residence of Sir William 
Johnson, Bart. 

Sir William was then living in baronial splendor at John- 
son Hall, with the Mohawk Princess, Molly Brandt, who 
was his Indian wife, and their eight dusky children. He 
was then His Brittanic Majesty's Superintendent General of 
Indian affairs in North America, Colonel of the Six Na- 
tions, and a Major General in the British service. 



Il8 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

Thirty-five years before this, he had come over from Ire- 
land a poor young man, and settled in the Mohawk valley, 
then a wilderness, to take care of a large tract of land that 
was located there and owned by his uncle. Sir Peter Warren. 
Sir Peter Warren was an Admiral of the British navy, who 
while a commodore distinguished himself by the capture of 
Louisburgh from the French in 1745. Sir Peter married a 
daughter of Etienne De Lancey of New York, and with her 
received as a dowry this large tract of land in the Mohawk 
valley. It was situated in the eastern angle between the 
Mohawk River and the Schoharie Creek. 

Sir William Johnson, upon his first taking up his resi- 
dence in the Mohawk valley became a fur trader with the 
Indians, and kept for many years a country store for the 
accommodation of the scattered settlers of the region. 
Rising by degrees, through dint of industry and fair deal- 
ing, and by the faithful performance of the public trusts 
imposed upon him, he had become the proprietor of im- 
mense landed estates, the acknowledged lord of a princely 
manor, and high in the confidence of his sovereign. His 
victory over the French and Indians under Baron Dieskau, 
at Lake George in 1755, had won for him his title of nobili- 
ty. His wonderful influence, the most remarkable on record, 
over the Indian tribes, had given him an importance in the 
affairs of state second to no American then living. He 
was surrounded by a numerous tenantry and by followers 
that were loyal to him and his family even unto death. 

Sir William married in the more humble days of his early 
life a poor, modest gentle-hearted German girl, whom he 
found living with her parents in the Mohawk valley, whose 
maiden name was Catherine Weisenberg. She died young. 



TRVON COUNTY. I 19 

leaving three children, a son, Sir John Johnson, and two 
daughters who married respectively Col. Claus and Col. Guy 
Johnson. 

Sir William's Indian wife was Molly Brandt a sister of 
the celebrated Mohawk war-chief, Ta-en-da-ne-ga, or Jos- 
eph Brandt, who was afterward so long the terror of the 
border. After the death of his first wife he became enam- 
ored of Molly at a general muster of the Mohawk Valley 
militia held at or near Johnstown. Among the spectators 
at the training was a beautiful Indian maiden. One of the 
mounted officers, in sport, dared the maiden to ride on the 
bare-back of his horse behind his saddle three times around 
the parade ground, little thinking she would accept the 
challenge. Bounding from the ground, like a deer, upon his 
horse behind him, she encircled his waist with her arms, 
and over the ground they flew like the wind, her red mantle 
and luxuriant raven tresses streaming behind her, her beau- 
tiful face lighted up with the pleasurable excitement of the 
novel adventure. 

Sir William was an admiring witness of the scene, and was 
smitten with the charms of the dusky forest maiden. He 
inquired her name, and was told that she was the Indian 
Princess, Molly Brandt. He sought her at once, and made 
her his Indian bride. He married her after the true Indian 
style, by them considered binding, but never acknowledged 
her as his lawful wife. In his will he remembered her, 
calling her his "housekeeper, Molly Brandt," and left a 
large tract of land to his children by her, which lay in 
Herkimer county, between the East and West Canada 
creeks, and was long known to the early settlers as the 
Royal Grants. 



I 20 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

In the height of his power, Sir William Johnson at his 
seat near the Mohawk, on the border of a howling wilder- 
ness that stretched away to the Pacific, dispensed a right 
royal hospitality. Many a scion of the English nobility sat 
at his generous board, or, like the Lady Susan O'Brien, 
wandered through the woods with Sir William's accomplish- 
ed Indian wife, in search of the strange wild flowers of the 
New World. The Lady Susan passed considerable time at 
Johnson Hall. She was a neice of the first Lord Holland, 
and the sister of Lady Harriet Ackland, who as well as the 
Baroness Riedesel, the wife of the Hessian general, ac- 
companied her husband, under General Burgoyne, to the 
battle-field of Saratoga. 

In the summer, Sir William spent much of his time at 
the Fish House, his hunting lodge on the Sacondaga River, 
and at his cottage on Summer House Point, on the great 
Vlaie, which is one of the mountain meadows of the wilder- 
ness. 

Once every year the sachems of the Six Nations renewed 
their council fire at the Manor house, to talk with Sir 
William, the agent of their white father, who lived across 
the big water. On such occasions Sir William was himself 
painted and plumed and dressed like an Indian chief. 

Such was Sir William Johnson, at the time of the forma- 
tion of Tryon county, and such was he two years later at the 
time of his death in 1774. He seems to have been merci- 
fully taken away just before the slumbering fires of the 
Revolution were to burst forth, which were so soon destined 
to stain the fair valley of his home with blood, to send his 
family and followers fugitives across the Canadian border, 



I 



TRYON COUNTY. 121 

and to scatter his princely possessions like chaff before the 
wind.* 

II. 

THE DUTCH SETTLERS OF THE MOHAWK VALLEY. 

Among Sir William's nearer neighbors were several 
Dutch families whose descendants still live in the valley. 
They had left their less adventurous friends on the Hudson 
to become themselves the pioneers in the settlement of the 
wilderness of the Mohawk valley. 

They carried with them to their new homes that love of 
liberty which they had inherited from their ancestors of 
the glorious little Republic of Holland, at the mouth of the 
Rhine, the birth-place of civil and religious freedom. They 
had not forgotten their national humiliation at the British 
conquest of New Amsterdam, at the mouth of the Hudson 
in 1664. In short, in a war for independence, there was 
but one side for the Dutch settlers of the Mohawk valley 
to take — the side of freedom. 

III. 

' THE PALATINES. 

A few miles further up the valley of the Mohawk, at Ger- 
man Flats, now Herkimer, were other neighbors of Sir 
William. They were the Palatines, who were emigrants 
from the Lower Palatinate of the Rhine, one of the states 
of ancient Germany, adjoining Alsace and Lorraine. 

Connected with the French court under the Merovingian 
kings, the first Frankish dynasty in Gaul, who reigned from 

* See Life and Times of Sir William Johnson, by Wm. L. Stone ; 
Trappers of New York, by Jeptha R. Simms. 
16 



122 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

the fifth to the eighth centuries, was a high judicial ofificer 
called the comes palatii. This officer was a master of the 
royal household, and had supreme authority in a large class 
of causes that came before the king for decision. When- 
ever the king wished to confer a particular favor upon the 
ruler of a province, he granted to him the same powers 
within his province as the cojnes palatii exercised in the 
royal palace. With the power also went the title Coynes 
Palaiinus, or Count Palatine. From this ruler the province 
was called a palatinate. 

The Lower Palatinate was situated upon both sides of 
the Rhine, its area being about sixteen hundred square 
miles. Its chief cities were Mannheim and Heidelberg. 
For long centuries this little state and its neighboring pro- 
vinces of the Rhine were in the pathway and formed the 
battle-ground of the devastating armies of Europe. In the 
beginning of the last century. Queen Anne of England 
took under her protection a large number of its homeless, 
war-stricken people. In the year 1709 she sent over three 
thousand Palatines to America to help settle the virgin wil- 
derness. For a dozen years or more they were quartered 
at the expense of the British crown upon the Livingston 
Manor, on the banks of the Hudson. But Robert, the 
first lord of the Livingston Manor, it is said, was grasping 
and avaricious, and while he laid broad and deep the foun- 
dations of his house, since rendered so illustrious by his 
gentle descendants, the Palatines murmured and became 
discontented under his rule. So in the year 1722 a num- 
ber of families of these Palatines pushed their way from 
the Livingston Manor up the wild valley of the Mohawk, 



TRYON COUNTY. I 23 

and began a settlement at German Flats, while others settled 
in Cherry Valley and on the Schoharie kill. 

The Palatines had left their vineyards of the dear old 
Rhineland, so often laid waste by cruel war, for a still more 
savage home in the American wilds of a hundred and fifty 
years ago. 

At the formation of Tryon county, just fifty years after 
its early settlement, German Flats had grown into a large 
and flourishing settlement, under the hands of these indus- 
trious, frugal, painstaking Germans. With the Dutch set- 
tlers, they formed an important element in the politics of 
the new county. Like them, too, there was but one side 
for the Palatines to take in the coming contest. 

IV. 

THE IROQUOIS. 

But there was another element in the heated, seething 
politics of Tryon county, of more importance than all the 
others. 

Chief among the powers of Tryon county, previous to 
the war of the Revolution, was the remarkable Indian 
league or confederacy, known as the Six Nations. During 
all the long and bloody French and Indian wars, from their 
first encounter with Champlain and his Algonquin allies, in 
the summer of 1609, to the final conquest of Canada, in 
1763, these people of the Iroquois family of nations had 
been the firm friends and allies of the English. Through- 
out the whole length of Tryon county, from the manor 
house of Sir William Johnson, at Johnstown, to the falls of 
Niagara, lay the castles of these fierce savages like so many 
dens of ravening wolves. 



I 24 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

They were, as I have before stated, the most powerful, 
the most crafty, the most cruel, the most savage, the most 
politic, the most enlightened, of all the Indian tribes of 
North America. They were subject to no power on earth 
but their own fierce wills, yet were under the almost com- 
plete control of Sir William Johnson. In a war with Great 
Britain, it could not have been expected that the people of 
the Six Nations would desert their ancient ally. 

Such were the slumbering elements of discord that lay 
contiguous to each other, in seeming peace, within the lim- 
its of Tryon county at the date of its formation, on the eve 
of the Revolution. 

V. 

THE CONFLICT. 

In the spring of 1774, Sir William held his last grand 
council with his Iroquois neighbors, the people of the Six 
Nations, at his manor house in Johnstown. It was an oc- 
casion of more than ordinary pomp and ceremony. Dele- 
gations of sachems, chiefs, warriors and women, from all 
the castles of the Six Nations, were entertained for days at 
Sir William's expense. On the last day of the council Sir 
William made a speech of more than usual eloquence and 
power. But the terrors of the impending conflict which he 
knew must soon come, seemed to cast an unwonted gloom 
over his spirit. Exhausted by his effort, he was carried to 
his bed to die, before the smoke had ceased to rise from 
the council fires. 

In less than two years after Sir William's death the war- 
cloud, which had been so long gathering, burst like a whirl- 
wind over the valley of the Mohawk. Tryon county be- 



TRYON COUNTY. I 25 

came a scene of desolation and blood, such as even the old 
Wilderness, with all its savage horrors, had never seen be- 
fore. It would weary us all to follow the fortunes of the 
several peoples who made up the inhabitants of Tryon 
county through those terrible seven years of war. The 
history of the twelve years of the existence of Tryon coun- 
ty would fill a volume. A mere glance at what pccurred 
during the war must suffice for these pages. 

In pursuing this history, we should listen to the story of 
the first vigorous uprising, and the flight of Sir John John- 
son and his father's numerous tenantry and loyal adher- 
ents, together with his ever faithful allies, the Mohawks, 
to Canada, in the summer of 1775. Our blood would cur- 
dle at the relation of the cruel butchery of Cherry Valley, 
on the nth of October, 1778, which is second only in tragic 
interest to that of the far-famed valley of Wyoming, which 
occurred a few months earlier in the same year. The 
narrative would reveal the sickening horrors of the several 
raids made by Sir John Johnson's men and their savage 
allies, as they from time to time swooped down from their 
secure retreat beyond the St. Lawrence, upon the homes of 
their former neighbors in the valley of the Mohawk, leav- 
ing in their track nothing but blackened corpses and the 
ashes of ruined firesides. 

We should stand in imagination by the side of the gal- 
lant Herkimer, the Palatine general, in the bloody ambus- 
cade at Oriskany on the 5th day of August, 1777, when 
Brandt and his Mohawks, and Butler with his Tory rangers 
met their old neighbors, with whom they had been reared 
as children together on the l)anks of the Mohawk, in a 



126 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

hand-to-hand conflict, each dying in the other's arms in the 
terrible rage of battle. 

In the long recital of stirring events, perhaps nothing 
would interest us more than the details of Gen. Sullivan's 
avenging march with his army, in August, 1779, into the 
country of the far-off Senecas, in the Genesee valley, leav- 
ing nothing on his return but the ashes of villages and 
cornfields, and the scattered remnants of the once power- 
ful confederacy. 

And when the glad tidings of peace once more should 
come, we should see in Tryon county nothing but a deso- 
late blood-stained wilderness. We should learn that when 
the war broke out in 1775, Gov. Tryon reported ten thou- 
sand whites and two thousand Indian warriors as compris- 
ing the population of Tryon county. Two years before 
the end of the war, the Indian tribes were broken and scat- 
tered. Of the ten thousand white inhabitants, one-third 
had espoused the royal cause and fled to Canada, one-third 
had been driven from their homes or slain in battle, and of 
the remaining third, three hundred were widows and two 
thousand were orphan children.* 

Then, when peace was declared, we should see the old 
Dutch settlers of the valley and their neighbors, the Pala- 
tines, coming back to find the places of their old hearth- 
stones overgrown with bushes, and fast reverting to the 
original forests. But they were now the masters of the 
valley, the true lords of Tryon county. And smiling 
through their tears, in 1784, they dropped the now odious 
name of Tryon, and called their county in honor of the 
lamented Montgomery. 

* See Campbell's annals of Tryon county. 



TRYON COUNTY. I 27 

The name of the county of Charlotte was at the same 
time changed to Washington, and the two names, Tryon 
and Charlotte, have long since fallen out of human speech, 
and can now only be found in musty records or on the his- 
torian's page. 

To-day the traveller, as he whirls along through the fer- 
tile valley of the Mohawk, in the palatial cars of the mod- 
ern railroad which is built over the old Indian trail, per- 
chance gets a glimpse of the old mansion called Fort John- 
son, on the north bank of the river, which is one of the 
few remaining historical landmarks connected with the 
memory of Sir William, while Tribes Hill, Canajoharie, 
and other Indian names still suggest the old Mohawk oc- 
cupancy, and Palatine Bridge connects the present with the 
long chain of historic circumstances which run back in un- 
broken course to the old homes of a people in the Rhine- 
land of two hundred years ago. But he will hear nothing 
in all his journeyings of Tryon county. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE MANOR OF WILLSBORO. 

" Life hath its harvest moons, 
Its tasselled corn and purple weighted vincj 
Its gathered sheaves of grain, the blessed sign 
Of plenteous reaping, bread, and pure rich wine, 
Full hearts for harvest tunes. 

" Life hath its barren years 
When blossoms fall untimely down ; 
When ripened fruitage fails to crown 
The summer toil ; when nature's frown 
Looks only on our tears." 

I. 

SEIGNEURIES. 

Of the many attempts in colonial times to follow in the 
New World the old order of things, the Dutch and English 
baronial manors founded upon the Hudson, and the French 
seigneuries on the St. Lawrence, were in a measure successful 
ones, but in the rugged soil of the Wilderness, all such efforts 
proved abortive. Among such unsuccessful efforts there is 
none which possesses a more melancholy interest than the 
now forgotten Manor of Willsboro, which was located near 
the mouth of the Boquet River, on Lake Champlain. 

During the French occupancy of the Champlain valley, 
the Governor-General of Canada granted large tracts of 
land lying on both sides of the lake to several persons hold- 
ing office under the French king. These grants were seign- 
euries over which the proprietors could exercise certain 
minor executive and judicial powers, after the manner of 
the feudal lords of the Old World. On two only of their 
seigneuries lying within the territory of Northern New 
York were settlements made by the French proprietors. 



THE MANOR OF WILLSBORO. I 29 

One settlement was commenced on the seigneurie of Sieur 
Pean, major of the castle and town of Quebec, at the mouth 
of the Chazy, granted in 1733, and another on the Seign- 
eurie of Alainville, granted to Michael Chartier de Lot- 
biniere by the Marc[uis de Vaudreuil, Governor-General, in 
November, 1758. The Seigneurie of Alainville lay partly 
on Lake George, and partly on Lake Champlain, between 
the outlet of Lake George and Crown Point. It was four 
leagues front by five in depth. After the conquest of Canada 
in 1763 the title to all the French seigneuries became vest- 
ed in the British crown. 

IL 

WILLIAM GILLILAND. 

Soon after the conquest, William Gilliland, then a rich 
and prosperous merchant of New York, purchased several 
large tracts of these lands that lay along the western bor- 
der of Lake Champlain and near the mouth of the Boquet 
River. The tracts first purchased by Gilliland were parts 
of the seigneurie of Sieur Robart, king's storekeeper at 
Montreal. Sieur Robart 's tract embraced "three leagues 
front by two leagues in depth on the west side of Lake 
Champlain, taking in going down one league below the 
River Boquet, and in going up two and a half above said 
river," as described in the grant. Sieur Robart's seigneurie 
was granted in 1737. It was surveyed, but he failed to ef- 
fect a settlement upon it. Upon these tracts Gilliland 
made an unsuccessful attempt to found a magnificent bar- 
onial manor in imitation of the Van Rensselaers, the Liv- 
ingstons, the Phillipses, and the Van Cortlandts on the 



130 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

Hudson. His first tract extended about six miles in front 
on the lake, and from three to four miles in depth, and con- 
tained 3,500 acres. About one-half mile of the front lay 
north of the Boquet, and the remainder south of the river. 
He afterwards located another tract of 4,500 acres in the 
modern town of Westport, which he called Bessboro, after 
his daughter, and several thousand acres more on the Sal- 
mon River, which he called Jamesboro, after his brother ; 
and still another tract at Cumberland Head, which he 
called Charlottesboro, from another daughter. The town 
of Willsboro commemorates his own name. William Gilli- 
land was born near the city of Armagh, in Ireland, about 
the year 1734. At the schools of Armagh he received a 
liberal education. His culture, his intelligence, his polished 
manners and fine person soon made him a favorite in its 
best society. A mutual and warm attachment followed his 
acquaintance with a young lady of noble birth and great for- 
tune, the Lady Betsey Eckles. But the disparity of their birth 
and fortune was an insuperable barrier to their marriage. 
Her family, interposing its powerful arm, secluded her and 
banished her lover from his country. He enlisted in the 
thirty-fifth regiment of the line, and after four years' ser- 
vice was discharged alone and friendless in the city of 
Philadelphia. He soon after went to the city of New York, 
and entered a mercantile house, in which he shortly became 
a partner. Before a year elapsed he won the affections of 
Elizabeth Phagan, the beautiful and accomplished daughter 
of his wealthy partner. They were married on the eighth 
day of February, 1759. He received with her hand the 
large sum, for the time, of fifteen hundred pounds, as her 
dowry. 



THE MANOR OF WILLSBORO. 131 

But the ambition of young Gilliland was not satisfied by 
his brilliant and successful career as a merchant. He was 
charmed by the baronial estates on the lower Hudson, and 
resolved to be himself the founder of a manor of equal 
magnificence. In his dreams of the future he saw himself 
in the exalted station of a great landholder, ruling over a 
subservient tenantry with the power of the old feudal 
authority that had once so effectually spurned his presence 
in his native country. Would not his triumph in the New 
World make amends for his too severe rebuke in the Old ? 
So in 1764, he purchased his tract on the Boquet River, and 
began the settlement of his manor under the most auspic- 
ous circumstances. A little flourishing settlement soon 
sprang up around him in the wilderness, and his wildest 
dreams seemed likely to be realized. His plan of settlement 
was similar to that of the manors on the Hudson. He held 
the land in fee, and leased to settlers at a small annual rent. 

But after twelve short prosperous years had passed by, 
the war of the Revolution broke out, and his growing 
manorial estate lying in the great northern valley, through 
which ran the old war-trail of the Indian, and being in the 
long-trodden pathway of devastating armies, it was doomed 
to destruction. The Americans under Arnold in 1776 com- 
menced, and the British under Burgoyne in 1777 completed 
the ruin of his possessions. He fled to New York, and did 
mot visit his property for seven long years. After the war 
he returned to find his tenantry scattered, his buildings in 
ashes, and the wild forest fast encroaching upon the once 
fair fields of his now desolate domain. 

But hope still gilded the scene, and he made fruitless 
attempts to retrieve his shattered fortunes. He petitioned 



132 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

Congress for redress on account of the damage sustained in 
the war, but Congress, although willing, had no money to 
repay him his losses. At length, being unable to surmount 
his financial difficulties, and heavy judgments having been 
filed against him, in September, 1786, he was placed upon 
the jail limits of New York for debt, at the suit of his credi- 
tors, he having already disposed of all his interest in his 
landed estates. He was not released until 1791. After 
this six years involuntary exile, he again returned to his 
former home on the banks of the Boquet. 

But his accumulated misfortunes were too much for even 
his strong intellect, and his mind partially gave way beneath 
the constant strain. No longer able to make further effort 
to retrieve his fallen fortunes, he was employed, on account 
of his intimate acquaintance with such matters, by an as- 
sociation in which he had some interest, formed for the 
purchase and location of wild lands, in looking up the cor- 
ners of their lots, and in tracing the lines of their lands 
through the forest. Finally, in the year 1796, in the month 
of February, while travelling in the woods on foot and 
alone, for the purpose of locating some lots of wild land, 
he wandered from his path, and perished from cold and 
exposure. He had evidently been stricken by some sudden 
attack that deprived him of the power of walking. His 
bleeding hands and knees, worn to the muscles and nerves, 
showed his unavailing struggles. 

" Found dead ! dead and alone ! 
Nobody near with love to greet, 
Nobody heard his last faint groan, 
Or knew when his sad heart ceased to beat ; 
No mourner lingered with tears or sighs, 
But the stars looked down with pitying eyes, 



THE MANOR OF WILLSBORO. I 33 

And the chill winds passed with a wailing sound 
O'er the lonely spot where his form was found. 

" Found dead ! dead and alone ! 
There was somebody near, somebody near, 
To claim the wanderer as His own. 
And find a home for the homeless here ; 
One, when every human door 
Is closed to His children scorned and poor, 
Who opens the heavenly portals wide ; 
Ah ! God was near when the wanderer died." 

"Such," says Winslow C. Watson, "was the last sad and 
tragic scene in a singularly variegated drama of a remarka- 
ble life. The career of Gilliland was a romance. Its 
strange vicissitudes not only invoke sympathy and compas- 
sion, but are calculated to impart solemn and salutary ad- 
monition. The pioneer of the Champlain valley thus pit- 
eously perished in what should have been the ripeness of 
his years and the plenitude of his powers and usefulness — 
for his age was scarcely three-score. The former lord of a 
vast domain, the generous patron and tender father, the 
dispenser of magnificent hospitalities, the associate and 
counsellor of vice-royalty, died, far away from human care, 
of cold and famine, with no voice of love to soothe his 
sufferings, and no kind hand to close his dying eyes." 

Gilliland for several years kept a diary of the transactions 
relating to the settlement of his manor. In this diary he 
carefully noted many of the details and the more important 
incidents of his attempts to settle his lands. It is an in- 
teresting story of energetic effort and fruitless endeavor. 
It has been published by Joel Munsell, of Albany, with a 
Memoir by Winslow C. Watson, under the title of "The 
Pioneer History of the Champlain Valley." 

A touching account is given in Mr. Gilliland's diary of 



134 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

the drowning of his little daughter Jane, aged six years, 
near Half Moon, now Waterford, on the loth of May, 
1776. With his mother and brothers, his wife and family, 
he was going up the river in batteaux, on his way from Al- 
bany to his manor on the Boquet. The batteau in which 
his daughter was sitting was carelessly run upon a fallen 
tree top that lay extended from the bank into the stream, 
and capsized. Her body was found the next day near 
the spot where she fell into the water, and was buried on 
the shore of the river in the burial place of a Mr. Coleman 
at Stillwater, not far from the battle ground made famous 
the year after, called Bemis Heights. 

Some of Gilliland's numerous descendants still own and 
occupy parts of his patrimonial estate in Northern New 
York, while others are scattered in various parts of the 
United States and Canada, all occupying the highest social 
positions. Elizabethtown, the shire-town of Essex county, 
was named in honor of his accomplished wife. And now 
the old seigneuries and the Manor of Willsboro on Lake 
Champlain, like Tryon county^ and like the ancient La 
Famine on Lake Ontario, have long been forgotten. 



CHAPTER XV. 

NORTH ELBA. 

The tomb of him who would have made 
The world too glad and free. 

— Hervey. 

I. 

ITS SITUATION. 

The little mountain hamlet of North Elba, now of world- 
wide fame, was for ten years the forest home of John Brown 
of Ossawottamie memory. It is situated in the township of 
the same name, on the western border of Essex county, in 
the very heart of the Great Wilderness, It is about forty 
miles west of Lake Champlain, and seven miles north of 
the Indian Pass. It is surrounded on all sides save its 
western by an ampitheatre of mountain ranges. To the 
westward it stretches off into the great wilderness plateau 
that lies beyond, filled to the brim with gleaming lakes, 
towering mountain peaks, and numberless wild meadows. 
At different points near this wild hamlet, the forms of the 
giant mountains which surround it, their gorges and land- 
slides, are brought clearly into view, as they tower in their 
sublime and awful grandeur above an unseen world of 
woods and waters. 

II. 

AN INDIAN VILLAGE. 

North Elba has had a checkered history. Before and 
during the colonial period it was the summer home of the 
Adirondack hunting bands. In all the old maps an Indian 



136 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

village is located near the spot. According to a tradition 
still lingering in this region, the bold partizan Capt. Robert 
Rogers, with his rangers, once attacked and destroyed this 
Indian village in the absence of the warriors. Upon their 
return, the infuriated braves pursued him, and gave him 
battle when he reached, upon his retreat, the banks of the 
Boquet River. 

There was also another Indian village not far away, near 
the Indian carry between the waters of the Saranac and the 
Raquette. The remains of this last-named village, with its 
burying ground, may still be traced. 

III. 

THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM. 

About the beginning of the present century, a little band 
of pioneer settlers strayed off into this secluded valley, 
made small clearings, and built their rude cabins. These 
pioneers, being separated from the outer world by impassi- 
ble mountain barriers, except by a long and circuitous 
trail up the valley of the Au Sable, subsisted mostly by 
hunting and fishing. In time they became almost as wild 
as the Indians that preceded them in the occupancy of their 
forest home. The place was then known as the "Plains of 
Abraham." 

At length in the year 1810, Archibald Mclntyre, of Al- 
bany, and his associates founded the North Elba iron works, 
on the Au Sable, near the Plains of Abraham, and broke 
in with their new industry upon the seclusion of these 
pioneers. New life was thus infused into this little half-wild 
community. But Mclntyre's enterprise was finally abandon- 



NORTH ELBA. I37 

ed about the year 1826, and nothing soon remained of it 
but a few decaying buildings and broken water-wheels. At 
length, in that year the old Indian Sabelle led David Hen- 
derson, the son-in-law and associate of Mclntyre, from the 
abandoned works at North Elba, through the Indian Pass 
to the iron dam on the Hudson. The Adirondack Iron 
Works springing up in consequence of this discovery, cast 
another gleam of ruddy light across the mountain shadows 
of the Plains of Abraham. 

Then, with the decay of the Adirondack village, new and 
strange characters appeared upon the scene. The careless 
pioneer settlers of the Plains of Abraham had squatted upon 
their lands, and had never acquired the title to them from 
the state. About the year 1840, a land speculator swooped 
down upon their possessions, and they were in their turn, 
like the Indians, driven from their homes. It was about 
this time that Gerrit Smith bought the Plains of Abraham, 
with miles of the land contiguous to. them, and made his 
attempt to colonize the grim old northern wilderness with 
the free colored people of the state. He made to each 
family a gift of forty acres of land on condition of settle- 
ment. He hoped thereby to found in that secluded spot, 
among their own people, a secure asylum for the many fugi- 
tive slaves who were then fleeing toward Canada from the 
southern plantations. 

IV. 

JOHN BROM^N OF OSSA WOTTAMIE. 

In the year 1849, Smith deeded to John Brown, as a free 
gift, a farm of three hundred and fifty acres, situate on the 
western slope of the valley of the Au Sable, at North Elba, 



138 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

and he at once became the leading spirit in the enterprise. 
John Brown had but just before made a journey to Europe. 
While there he admired the superb stock upon the English 
estates, and his martial spirit was aroused by the splendid 
equipments and elaborate evolutions of the vast armies of 
continental Europe. He moved his family of stalwart sons 
into his forest home, and with the aid of his colored breth- 
ren he cleared his fields. He stocked his mountain pas- 
tures with imported British cattle, and under his manage- 
ment the little hamlet among the mountains, for a while, 
seemed to prosper. But the mutterings of the " irrepressi- 
ble conflict " reached him in his secluded retreat. His 
spirit was as turbulent and wild as the torrents that dashed 
around his home. His stormy soul was filled with prophetic 
visions of the vast annies that were destined then so soon 
to march on throughout the length and breadth of our 
land to their fratricidal struggle. When the troubles about 
slavery broke out in Kansas they at once attracted his at- 
tention, and, with his sons, he hastened into the thickest of 
the fight. Conspicuous in almost every contest therein, 
his name is intimately associated with this stormy period in 
our country's annals. 

While engaged in this anti-slavery controversy, for ten 
years he was seldom seen at his home in North Elba, 
but he made it his head-quarters, and paid it an occasional 
visit, until, in the year 1859, his life was ended upon the 
scaffold, in Virginia, in consequence of his insane attempt 
,to liberate the southern slaves by force of arms, an act 
which seemed to precipitate the Great Rebellion. After 
his death, his body was brought by the remaining members 



NORTH ELBA. I 39 

of his family, and buried in front of the house in which he 
had lived at North Elba. 

"The house," says a writer in Old and New for Sep- 
tember, 1870, "is unpainted and plain, though equal to 
the ordinary farm houses of the region. It stands well up 
the hills, separated from the wilderness by a few cleared 
fields, commanding a majestic view of the mountain world. 
A few rods in front, a huge boulder, surrounded by a plain 
board fence, is the fit monument of the fierce old apostle of 
liberty. At its foot is the grave. The headstone was 
brought from an old grave yard in New England, where it 
stood over the grave of his father, Capt. John Brown, who 
died in New York in 1776. The whole stone is covered 
with the family inscriptions: John Brown, executed at 
Charlestown, Va., Dec. 2, 1859. Oliver and Watson, his 
sons, both killed at Harper's Ferry, the same year ; and his 
son Frederick, murdered in Kansas by border ruffians in 
1856. Above the little grassy enclosure, towers the mighty 
rock, almost as high as the house, and on its summit is cut 
in massive granite characters the inscription 'John Brown, 
1859.' Standing on the top of this monumental rock, for 
the first time I felt that I comprehended the character of 
the man whose name it commemorates. I could well un- 
derstand how such a man, formed in the mould of the old 
Scotch Covenanters and English Puritans, brooding over 
the horrors of slavery, foreseeing the impending struggle for 
liberty, maddened by the murder of his son and friends in 
Kansas, with the mighty northern hills looking down upon 
him, the rush of strong rivers, and the songs of resounding 
tempests, and the mystery of the illimitable wilderness all 
about him, should easily come to think himself inspired to 



140 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

descend like a mountain torrent, and sweep the black curse 
from out the land. I reverently raised my hat, and sung 
'John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave; His 
soul is marching on.' " 

The attempt of Gerrit Smith to found a colony of colored 
people at North Elba, proved an utter failure. The child- 
ren of the sunny south could not tame the old north wilder- 
ness. The surviving members of John Brown's family 
sought elsewhere more congenial homes, and now the little 
forest hamlet, after its eventful career, sits almost deserted 
among its sheltering mountains, inhabited by a few families 
only, and affording a transient stopping place for the curious 
summer tourist, and the wandering hunter. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE ADIRONDACK VILLAGE. 

From the ground 
Comes up the laugh of children, the soft voice 
Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn 
Of Sabbath worshippers. The low of herds 
Blends with the rustling of the heavy grain 
Over the dark brown furrows. All at once 
A fresher wind sweeps by and breaks my dream, 
And I am in the Wilderness alone. 

— Bryant. 

I. 

In the depths of the limitless forest, and surrounded by 
the towering peaks of the old giants of the mountain belt, 
now sleeps, like a strong man after his labors are ended, the 
little decaying and deserted hamlet known as Adirondack 
Village, or the Upper Iron Works. Its story is a tale of 
almost superhuman effort, crowned with partial success, but 
finally ending in fruitless endeavor, disaster and death. 

Six or seven miles below, and to the south of the old In- 
dian Pass in the valley of the infant Hudson, and fed by 
its waters, which there run through them, are the lakes 
Sanford and Henderson, lying about a mile apart. 

Between these two lakes, upon the right bank of the 
Hudson, the connecting river, this famous village is situ- 
ated. To the west of it rises Santanoni, to the north 
yawns the awful gorge of the Indian Pass, and to the east 
of it old Tahawas towers up above the clouds. 

II. 

About the year 1826, Archibald Mclntyre, of Albany, 
David Henderson, his son-in-law, of Jersey City, and Dun- 
can McMartin, with others, were or had been proprietors of 



142 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

iron works at North Elba, on the Au Sable. One day in 
that year, Mr. Henderson, while standing near his works, 
was approached by an old Indian, of the St. Francis tribe, 
named Sabelle, who often hunted near that wild region. 
The Indian took from under his blanket a lump of rich 
iron ore, and showing it to Mr. Henderson, said to him : 

"You want to see 'um ore.'' Me find plenty all same." 

"Where ?" said Mr. Henderson, eagerly. 

"Me hunt beaver all 'lone," replied old Sabelle, "and 
find 'um where water run pom, pom, pom, over t'ron dam, 
'way off there," pointing toward the southern woods beyond 
the Indian Pass. 

The next day an exploring party, guided by old Sabelle, 
set out in search of this wonderful bed of iron ore, and 
boldly plunged into the then unknown wilderness. They 
spent the first night within the gorge of the Indian Pass, 
at the fountain head of the infant Hudson. The day after, 
following the course of the stream, they reached lakes 
Sanford and Henderson, and found the iron dam across the 
bed of the Hudson between the two lakes. The old Indian 
had not misled them. There was " plenty " of ore — there 
were mountains of ore all around them. There was ore 
enough there apparently to supply the world with iron for 
ages. 

Mr. Henderson and his associates hastened to Albany, 
purchased of the State a large tract of land, and formed a 
company to be called the "Adirondack Iron and Steel Com- 
pany," with a capital of one million dollars, to operate these 
inexhaustible mines. A clearing was soon made near the 
"iron dam" of old Sabelle. A road was cut into it with 
great labor, winding around the mountain masses a distance 



THE ADIRONDACK VILLAGE. 1 43 

of fifty miles from Crown Point, on Lake Cliamplain. Then 
a little mountain hamlet sprung up, as if by magic, in the 
wild, secluded valley. Forges, boarding houses, store 
houses, cottages, mills, and a school house were built. The 
mountain shadows were soon lighted up with the ruddy glow 
of furnace fires, and the howling wilderness was made vocal 
with the roar of ponderous machinery, with the hum of 
many industries, and the songs of labor. The busy house- 
wives spun and wove, and plied their daily toil ; the child- 
ren laughed, and frolicked, and loitered on their way to and 
from their school, and from many a stumpy pasture round 
about came the drowsy tinkle of the cow bells. 



III. 

But a sad calamity awaited Mr. Henderson, the man 
whose tireless energy helped so much to build up this little 
oasis in the wilderness. In the month of September, 1845, 
he was one day exploring the woods near the foot of Mount 
Marcy. He was accompanied only by his little son, ten 
years old, and the famous hunter John Cheney as their 
guide. They stopped to rest upon a rock that lay on the 
border of a little mountain pond, since known as Calamity 
Pond. Mr. Henderson, thinking their guide had laid his 
knapsack, in which was a loaded pistol, in a damp place, 
took it up to remove it to a dryer one. When putting it 
down again the hammer of the pistol struck, in some way, 
the solid rock. The pistol exploded, its ball entering Mr. 
Henderson's heart. "To die in such an awful place as 
this," moaned the fallen man. "Take care, my son, of your 
mother when I am gone," were his last words. 



144 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

Upon the wild spot where he fell his children afterward 
erected a beautiful monument of Nova Scotia freestone, 
carved with exquisite taste, in the highest style of art. It 
was brought in pieces to the spot by the hands of the sor- 
rowing workmen of the forge. Upon it is this touching in- 
scription : " Erected by filial affection to the mem- 
ory OF OUR dear father, WHO ACCIDENTALLY LOST HIS 
LIFE ON THIS SPOT 3D SEPTEMBER, 1845." 

" How often," says Street, " has the wild wolf made his 
lair beside it ; how often the savage panther glared at its 
beautiful proportions, and wondered what object met his 
blazing eye-balls." 

After the death of Mr. Henderson, the industries of the 
little village flagged. Its distance from market over almost 
impassable roads proved to be an insuperable hindrance to 
its further progress. In a few years the Adirondack village, 
as a business enterprise, was entirely abandoned. For near- 
ly a quarter of a century it has been left to decay, and has 
been the abode of solitary fishermen and hunters. Nature, 
always aggressive, is fast re-asserting her stern dominion 
over the once busy scene — once busy, but now desolate and 
forsaken — 

" Where the owl still hooting sits. 
Where the bat incessant flits." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND. 

" I planted in ray heart one seed of love 
Watered with tears and watched with tenderest care, 
It grew, but when I look'd that it might prove 
A glorious tree, and precious fruit might bear. 
Blossoms nor fruit were there to crown my pain. 
Tears, care, and labor had been all in vain. 
Yet now I dare not pluck it from my heart. 
Lest with the deep-struck root, my life depart." 

— Qttoted frojn jnernory. 

I. 

HIS " SYLPHIDE." 

Among the many distinguished European travelers who, 
like Peter Kalm, Tom. Moore, the Due de la Rochefou- 
cauld, and the Prince de Talleyrand, visited Northern New 
York while it was still nearly all clothed in the wild splen- 
dor of its primeval forests, was Chciteaubriand, the eminent 
author and statesman of France. Seventy years ago his 
works were read and admired by every one. They were 
dramatized and acted upon the stage, and translated into 
other tongues. They were then the best interpreters of the 
spirit of the age — the spirit of reviving Christianity. To- 
day he is almost forgotten. 

Fran9ois Auguste, Viscount de Chateaubriand, was born of 
a noble family on the 14th of September, 1768, at St. Malo, 
the birthplace of the old mariner Jacques Cartier, the dis- 
coverer of the river St. Lawrence. St. Malo, as before 
stated in these pages, is a quaint old seaport town of Brit- 
tany, built in mediaeval times upon a rock then forming a 
part of the mainland. In 1709 an earthquake turned it 
into an island, and it is now a huge rock standing in the 
19 



146 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

middle of a salt marsh, which is covered by the sea at high 
tide. 

Many a strange old superstition still flourishes among its 
simple people. Its quaint mediseval customs were carried 
to the New World by its old mariners, and the songs heard 
in its streets found a wild echo among the Thousand Islands 
of the St. Lawrence and along the mountain shores of Lake 
Champlain. Thus, too, in the wilds of the New World were 
introduced by these mariners the stories of the dwarfs and 
giants of the fairy mythology which the Northmen of the 
tenth century brought from their ancient home when they 
invaded Brittany. 

The family of Chateaubriand, like many of the old no- 
blesse, had, in his youth, fallen into decay. His early days 
were passed in squalid poverty, his father saving all his in- 
come to buy back the family possessions. With shirt in 
rags, his stockings full of holes, and his slippers down at 
the heel, the proud, sensitive, romantic boy would shrink 
from his better dressed companions, and wander for days 
on the shore of some lonely bay among the rocks, watching 
the waves of the storm-beaten Atlantic, as they came in, 
freighted with wild tales of the wonderful land beyond it in 
the New World. It was here in his moody, brooding boy- 
hood, while studying Rousseau, that he conceived the idea 
of a romance founded upon savage life, and pictured to his 
imagination a beautiful creature, clothed with every virtue 
and girlish charm, whom he called his Sylphide. This fairy 
creature of his boyish fancy, this "vision beautiful," haunt- 
ed his dreams until after he had become familiar with the 
dusky maidens of the American forests, it grew at length 
into his "Atala," the heroine of his most famous story. 



VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND. 147 

Finally he was sent to school, and growing up to manhood, 
wandered to Paris just as the delirium of the French Revo- 
lution was at its height. In Paris he found every one living 
in the wildest excitement at balls, theatres, clubs, political 
meetings, gaming houses, and the old order of things in 
state, in religious and in social life, completely reversed. 



II. 

HIS JOURNEYINGS. 

We now come to the second phase of his life. Out of 
the turmoil of the Revolution, Chiiteaubriand, in the year 
1791, sailed for America. After visiting Philadelphia, and 
being presented to Gen. Washington, to whom he had letters 
of introduction, he went to New York, and then to Albany. 
Westward of Albany even, in those days, the whole country 
lay spreading out in its aboriginal wildness, save a few 
feeble settlements up the Hudson and along the valley of 
the Mohawk. Chateaubriand now dressed himself in the 
garb of an Indian hunter, and plunged at once into the 
wilderness. Sometimes alone, sometimes in company with 
an Indian band of hunters, he wandered through the sub- 
lime scenes of primeval nature that he afterward painted so 
glowingly in his romances. Sometimes he would spend 
weeks together at an Indian village, studying the strange 
characters around him, and witnessing the wild gambols of 
the Indian children, saw in the perfect forms of the dusky 
forest maidens the physical ideal of his beauteous Sylphidc. 
Sometimes in his travels he found the friendly shelter of a 
hut and a bed of bear skins. Oftener his bed was made 
"upon the dead leaves of a thousand years," under the 



148 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

shelter of some mighty tree, beside a lonely camp-fire, 
"locked in the arms of a limitless moon-lit silence, broken 
only by the cries of wild animals, or the stir of the wind- 
swept leaves, or the distant roar of eternal Niagara." 

After he had thus wandered for more than a year in these 
northern wilds, he found in a Canadian cabin an English 
newspaper, in which was an account of the arrest of Louis 
XVI. He hastened back to France to find his family in 
dungeons and his estates confiscated. The next eight years 
he spent in poverty and exile, composing in the meantime 
his immortal romances, that upon his return to France under 
the Consulate and the first Empire, were destined to create 
so deep and wide spread a sensation. 



III. 

HIS "aTALA." 

During the French Revolution the Voltaire school of 
thought accomplished its mission and reduced all its wild 
theories to practice. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and 
Atheism were established, and failed to satisfy the wants of 
the people. Upon the establishment of the Consulate and 
the first Empire, when society began to move in its old 
channels, the people began to tire of the hopeless world of 
scepticism, and to long for the old belief The sons of the 
men who had considered Christianity an absurd and nox- 
ious thing, were now longing ardently for its re-establish- 
ment. Chateaubriand was the first one to put these long- 
ings after the old belief into language, and his christian ro- 
mances struck the popular heart of France with wonderful 
power, and made it thrill with joy. 



VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND. 1 49 

In 1801 he published his " Atah\, a Christian Romance." 
In September of that year Napoleon re-established the 
right of public worship, and the Christian religion. In 
1803, Chateaubriand published his '''Gi/iie dii Chrisiiaiiisiiic" 
the object of which was to show forth the beauties of the 
christian faith in the garb of romance. Thus he struck the 
spirit of his age, the " spirit of reviving Christianity," and 
he shone like a meteor, under the Consulate, the Empire, 
and the Restoration. He made Christianity lovely by asso- 
ciating it with poetry and music, with majesty and peace. 
He brought back to the mind of the people the solemn 
chant of the processional, the glorious roofs of grand cathe- 
drals, the tenderness of charity, the valor of the crusaders, 
the devotion of the missionary. He illustrated it all by the 
charms of the wild exuberance of nature among which he 
had wandered in the forest wilds of the New World. His 
romances were filled with dazzling descriptions of the glory 
of the autumn woods, the odor of the violet and the rose, 
the music of running brooks, the awful majesty of moun- 
tain ranges and the thunder of the cataract. 

The heroine of his best romance was "Atala," an Indian 
maiden who had become a Christian, and who took upon her- 
self a vow of perpetual virginity. She falls passionately in 
love, however, with an Indian l)rave named Ren^, who is a 
captive in her tribe, and whose escape she contrives. She 
follows him alone through the forest, and finding her love 
for him overcoming her, kills herself rather than break her 
christian vows. Around this simple plot he weaves a story 
full of christian fervor, hope and love. 



150 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

IV. 
HIS IDEAL. 

But I can not take leave of Chateaubriand without say- 
ing something of his friendship, his love in his declining 
years for Madame Julie R^camier. Like Abelard and his 
Heloise, like Petrarch and his Laura, like Dante and his 
Beatrice, like Tasso and his Eleonora, like Goethe and his 
Minna, we find Chateaubriand and his Julie bound together 
by the links of a spiritual chain, and joined by that mys- 
terious sympathy which seems in some measure to satisfy 
the infinite longings of us poor mortals, which helps some- 
how to compensate us for our small acquirings, and to give 
us here on earth some slight foretaste of the eternal joy of 
heaven. In the inviting salon of Madame R^camier were 
daily congregated the wit, the intellect, and the beauty that 
were left of the old regime, and what was best of the new, 
all attracted by her matchless beauty and wonderful good- 
ness. Of this fascinating woman, Chateaubriand was also, 
during all the last years of his life, a constant daily visitor. 
Thus at length, after all his wanderings, he found in her 
loving presence a haven of sweet rest, and there at her feet 
he sat in perpetual adoration of her charms. In her at 
last did he not find, when it was all too late, the spiritual 
ideal of his beautiful "Sylphide," the "vision beautiful" 
of his boyish fancy .'' Is not this the old, old story with 
us all .'' " Do we ever find our ideals before it is too late .'*" 
Do we ever find them at all except in our waking or in our 
sleeping dreams.? 

In 1848 Chateaubriand died, and was buried on a little 
island near his birth-place, St. Malo. I said that to-day he 



VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND. 



151 



was almost forgotten, yet on the 14th of September, 1875, 
which was the one hundred and seventeenth anniversary of 
his birth, the best men and women of France made a pil- 
grimage to his tomb, and as they gathered around it, a 
statue was raised to his memory on the old sea-girt rock of 
St. Malo. Thus at last a somewhat tardy justice has been 
done to the memory of him whom Sainte-Beuve has called 
the "poetical advocate of Christianity." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

CASTORLAND. 

On an hundred thousand acres, never trod by foot of men, 

He had mapped out farms and vineyards, roads o'er precipice and glen. 

And like scenes of an enchanter rose a city wondrous fair. 

With its colleges, its churches, and its castles in the air. 

Then was struck a classic medal by this visionary band, 
Cybele was on the silver, and beneath was Castorland, 
The reverse a tree of maple, yielding forth its precious store. 
Salve magna parens frugum was the legend that it bore. 

— Caleb Lyon of Lyonsdale. 

I. 




CASTORLAND STATION. 

The summer tourist, on his way from 
Trenton Falls to the Thousand Is- 
lands, may pass through the beautiful 
and flourishing valley of the Black 
River, over the Utica and Black River 
Railroad. As the train draws near to 
the first station north of the village of 
Lowville, he will hear the sharp voice of the brakeman cry- 
ing out "Cas-tor-land." He will look out of the car win- 
dow and see a wide level clearing of pasture land and 
meadow, skirted by forests, one side of which is bounded 
by the river. In the middle of this clearing he will see 
only the small station house, and three or four scattered 
buildings surrounding it, and will doubtless wonder whence 
comes the high-sounding name for such meagre surround- 
ings. 

The story of Castorland is the often repeated tale of 
frustrated settlements in the old wilderness. It is the story 



CASTORLAND. 1 53 

of an attempt of the exiled nobility and clergy of the old 
regime in France to found a settlement in the wilds of the 
the New World, where they could find a secure retreat 
from the horrors of Revolution in the Old 

This attempt was made at the close of the last century in 
the valley of the Black River, on the western slope of the 
Great Wilderness. But, like the settlement of the first 
Catholics on the Patuxent, the Jacobites with Flora Mc- 
Donald at Cape Fear, the Huguenots with Jean Ribault at 
Port Royal ; like New Amsterdam on the Hudson, New 
Sweden on the Delaware ; like Acadie in Nova Scotia, Cas- 
torland on the Black River lives now only in poetry and 
history. Its story is one of brilliant promises all unfulfilled, 
of hopes deferred, of man's tireless but fruitless endeavor, 
of woman's tears. 

To rescue this name so fraught with historical associa- 
tions from oblivion, it was applied to the railroad station 
which is nearest to the site of the largest projected city of 
ancient Castorland. That city was laid out on the Beaver 
River, which flows into the Black River from the Wilder- 
ness nearly opposite this station. 



II. 

ANCIENT CASTORLAND. 

For the purpose of effecting the settlement of Castorland 
a company was formed in Paris, under the laws of France, 
in the month of August, 1792, and styled La Compagnie de 
New York. On the 31st day of the same month the Com- 
pany, by its agent, Pierre Chassanis, bought a large tract of 
land lying in the valley of the Black River, of William 
20 



154 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

Constable, who was the owner of Macomb's Purchase. This 
tract lay along both sides of the Black River below the High 
Falls, and extended westerly through the counties of Lewis 
and Jefferson to Lake Ontario, and easterly into the heart 
of the Great Wilderness. The Castorland purchase at first 
comprised the whole of Great Lot No. 5 of Macomb's Pur- 
chase, and contained six hundred and ten thousand acres. 
But subsequently all south and west of the Black River, 
being the part which now constitutes the richest towns of 
Lewis and Jefferson counties, was given up, and only that 
lying to the north and east of the river retained. The por- 
tion so retained contained only two hundred and ten thou- 
sand acres. This was the Castorland of the olden time. 

The name Castorland, that is to say, the Land of Beav- 
ers, is doubtless a literal translation of the old Indian 
Couch-sach-ra-ge, which means in the Iroquois tongue, the 
" Beaver Hunting Country," Castorland being taken out of 
the western half of this old Indian hunting ground. 

During the negotiations between Constable and Chassanis 
for this tract, the Revolution that had been so long smoul- 
dering, burst forth in all its savage fury, and the streets 
of Paris were slippery with human gore. Constable locked 
the door of the apartment in which they met, with the 
remark that, " if they parted before the purchase was com- 
pleted they might never meet again." The Palace of the 
Tuilleries was already surrounded by the bloodthirsty 
mob. The attendants of the royal family were butchered, 
and the feeble king cast into a dungeon. In comparison 
with such awful scenes as these in the very heart of the 
highest civilization the world had ever seen, the savage 
wildness of the old American forests was a scene of peace- 



CASTORLAND. 1 55 

ful rest. To the fugitive noblesse of France, the former 
possessors of titles, rank, wealth and culture, the quiet 
shades of Castorland afforded a secure asylum from the 
horrors of the Reign of Terror. 

III. 

SCHEME OF SETTLEMENT. 

A romantic scheme was at once conceived and perfected 
by the company in Paris for the settlement of Castorland. 
In pursuance of this scheme a pamphlet was printed in 
Paris and issued by the Company, containing a programme 
of colonization under its auspices. This pamphlet was en- 
titled "Association for the purchase and settlement of six 
hundred thousand acres of land, granted by the State of 
New York, and situated within that state, between the 43d 
and 44th degrees of latitude, upon Lake Ontario, and thirty- 
five leagues from the city and port of Albany where vessels 
land from Europe." It set forth, among other things, in 
glowing colors, the wealth of agriculture presented by its 
fertile soil, the fine distribution of its waters, its facilities 
for an extended commerce on account of its location in the 
vicinity of a dense population, and above all the security 
afforded to its inhabitants by the laws of a people who were 
independent and rich with their own capital, thus extend- 
ing to the immigrant all the benefits of liberty witli none of 
its drawbacks. It was stated that the object of the propri- 
etors was to form of the colony a sort of family, in some 
way united by common interests and common wants, and 
that to maintain this union of interests a plan had been de- 
vised that rendered each member directly interested in the 



156 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

whole property. It was all to be done by and in the name 
of Sieur Chassanis, in whose name they had purchased the 
estate, and who alone had power to issue certificates of 
ownership. 

There were six thousand certificates to be issued, each 
entitling the holder thereof to ownership in manner follow- 
ing : The whole tract at that time consisted of six hun- 
dred and thirty thousand acres. Of this, six hundred 
thousand acres were divided into twelve thousand lots of 
fifty acres each, and the price of each share fixed at eight 
hundred livres ($152.38.) In the beginning six thousand 
lots were set apart for individual properties, and the other 
six thousand lots were to belong to a common stock which 
was to be divided at some future time, after improvements 
had been made thereon by the Company. Each holder of 
a certificate was to receive at once a deed for a separate lot 
of fifty acres, to be drawn by lot, and also a lot of fifty 
acres in the common undivided stock. 

Of the thirty thousand remaining acres, two thousand 
were set apart for a city to be formed on the great river in 
the interior, and two thousand more for another city on 
Lake Ontario, at the mouth of the river, which was to form 
a port and entre-pot of commerce. Among artizans six 
thousand acres were to be divided, and rented to them at 
twelve sous per acre. The proceeds of the twenty thousand 
acres remaining were to be expended by the Company in 
the construction of roads, bridges and other improvements. 

The two cities were divided into fourteen thousand lots 
each. Of these lots, two thousand were set apart for churches, 
schools, markets, &c. The remaining twelve thousand lots 
were to be divided among the six thousand holders of cer- 



CASTORLAND. 157 

tificates in the same manner as the large tract. Each hold- 
ing one separate lot and one in common. 

The affairs of the Company were to be managed by five 
trustees, three to remain in Paris and two upon the tract. 
Such was the scheme matured in the salons of Paris for the 
settlement of Castorland. Beautiful and promising beyond 
measure upon paper, as an ideal, but utterly impracticable 
and bitterly disappointing as a reality. Yet many shares 
were eagerly taken. 

IV. 

ORGANIZATION. 

On the 28th of June, 1793, it being the second year of 
the French Republic, the actual holders of certificates con- 
vertible into shares of La Compagiiie de New York met in 
the rooms of citizen Chassanis, in Paris, to organize their 
society upon the basis already established, and to regulate 
the division, survey and settlement of their lands. There 
were present at that meeting forty-one shareholders in all, 
who represented one thousand eight hundred and eight 
shares. They ]:)erfected and completed their organization ; 
they adopted a long and elaborate constitution; they chose 
a seal for their corporation, and appointed five commissaries 
to manage its affairs, three for Paris and two for Castorland. 
In the meantime the tract had been re-conveyed, and the 
large part lying west and south of the Black River given up, 
the part retained being that lying east and north of the 
river, and containing only two hundred and ten thousand 
acres, as before stated. To accord with this fact the num- 
ber of shares was reduced from six thousand to two thou- 



•58 



NORTHERN NEW YORK. 



sand. It was at this meeting that a silver piece was order- 
ed to be struck, termed a Jetton de presence, one of which 
was to be given at every meeting to each Commissary as an 
attendance fee.* 

The Commissaries appointed for America were Simon 
Desjardines and Pierre Pharoux, who lost no time in pro- 
ceeding to America to execute their important trust. Des- 
jardines had been a Chamberlain of Louis XVI. He was of 
middle age, an accomplished scholar and gentleman, but 
knew not a word of English when he arrived. He had 
with him his wife and three children, and his younger 
brother, Geoffrey Desjardines, who shared his labors and 





Obverse. Reverse. 

*These pieces occur in coih cabinets, and have been erroneously called 
" Castorland half-dollars." A Jetton is a piece of metal struck with a 
device, and distributed to be kept in commemoration of some event, or 
to be used as a counter in games of chance. The one hei'e noticed was 
tei-med a Jetton de presence, or piece " given in certain societies or com- 
panies to each of the members at a session or meeting." i^Dic. de 
I'Acad. Francaise.) It was engraved by one of the Duvivier brothers, 
eminent coin and metal artists of Paris. The design represents on the 
obverse the head of Cybele, who personified the earth as inhabited or 
cultivated, while on the reverse Ceres has just tapped a maple tree. 

The Latin legend on the reverse is a quotation from Virgil, which, 
with its context, reads : 

" Salve magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellus 
Magna virum * * * Geor. ii, 173. 

— Hough's History of Lewis County. 



CASTORLAND. 1 59 

trials. He also brought with him his library of two thou- 
sand volumes. Pierre Pharoux, as before mentioned in 
these pages, was a distinguished young architect and en- 
gineer of Paris, of high scientific attainments and marked 
ability. He was earnestly and faithfully devoted to his 
duties; and his love of science, his honesty, his good sense, 
and genial and ardent friendship were manifested in all his 
doings. He left behind him in France an aged father to 
mourn his untimely death. 

They sailed from Havre on the fourth day of July, 1793, 
in the American ship Liberty, but did not arrive in New 
York until the 7th of September following. There came 
over in the same vessel with them a young French refugee 
named Mark Isambart Brunei, who afterward filled the 
world with his fame as an engineer in England. Brunei 
had been in the French navy, and was driven from home on 
account of his royalistic proclivities. He went with them 
in all their journeys through the wilderness, and shared in 
all their hardships during the first year, but does not seem 
to have been employed by them in Castorland. 

One of their duties was to keep a daily journal and re- 
cord of all their doings for the information of the Company 
in Paris. This journal was lately discovered, by some one 
who appreciated its value, among a lot of old rags exposed 
for sale upon the Seine in Paris, and was brought to this 
country. It is now in the possession of Dr. F. B. Hough, 
the learned historian. This journal throws a flood of light 
upon the settlement of Castorland. "This journal," says 
Dr. Hough, "gives, with the greatest minuteness, the facts 
and incidents of their operations, their plans and failures, 
hopes and fears, gains and losses, with the most scrupulous 



l6o NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

exactness, while there runs through the whole a vein of 
humor that proves the authors to have been men who keen- 
ly enjoyed the ludicrous, and who closely observed both 
men and things." 

But I fear I shall weary the patience of the reader if I 
go much into detail upon the subject, and shall therefore 
endeavor to be brief. 

V. 

THEIR FIRST EXPLORATIONS. 

Soon after their arrival in this country, Desjardines and 
Pharoux, with their friend Brunei, set out on a voyage of 
exploration to their " promised land " in the wild valley of 
the Black River. To realize the difficulties of the under- 
taking, the reader must bear in mind that the country they 
were in quest of lay far away from Albany in the depths of 
a howling wilderness, which had then never been visited by 
white men, except around its border, or when carried across 
it as prisoners in savage hands ; that the only route to it 
was up the Mohawk, in batteaux, to Fort Stanwix, now the 
city of Rome; thence by the way of Wood Creek, the 
Oneida Lake, and the Oswego River to Lake Ontario, and 
from Lake Ontario up the unexplored route of the Black 
River. It was over the old Indian trail, the savage war- 
path of the French and Indian and of the Revolutionary 
wars, and even then there was threatened a general Indian 
war by all the tribes around our borders. But in the face 
of all these difficulties our explorers, in the autumn of 1793, 
set out for Castorland. 

In describing their passage over the carrying place from 
Fort Stanwix to Wood Creek, near where the four busy 



CASTORLAND. 1 6l 

tracks of the New York Central Railroad now run, they 
write in their journal, under date of October loth: "Upon 
taking a walk into the woods a short distance we saw on 
every hand it was a fearful solitude. You are stopped 
sometimes by impassable swamps, and at other times by 
heaps of trees that have fallen from age or have been over- 
thrown by storms, and among which an infinite number of 
insects and many squirrels find a retreat. On every hand 
we see the skeletons of trees overgrown with moss and in 
every stage of decay. The Capillaire and other plants and 
shrubs spring out of these trunks, presenting at once the 
images of life and death." 

The fort at Oswego was still held by a British garrison. 
Jealous of Fi*enchmen, the commander at first refused to 
allow them to pass into Lake Ontario, but it was finally ar- 
ranged that Brunei should remain as a hostage for the good 
conduct and safe return of the others. Brunei, however, 
was refused access to the fort, and was ordered to encamp 
alone in the woods on the opposite side of the river. Con- 
sidering that such treatment invalidated his parole, he es- 
caped from Oswego disguised as a common sailor and pro- 
ceeded with his friends on their expedition. They pro- 
ceeded cautiously along the shore of the lake over the route 
that had become historic by the presence of M. de la Barre 
and his army in their visit to La Famine in 1684, and of 
Father Charlevoix in 1720, and which had so often been 
traversed by their countrymen in the palmy days of the old 
French occupancy, until their arrival at Niaoiire Bay, now 
called Black River Bay. Here after a long search they dis- 
covered the mouth of the Black River, the great river that 
watered Castorland. But it was already so late in the sea- 



I 62 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

son that they only explored the river up to a point some 
five or six miles above the falls at Watertown, and then re- 
turned to Albany to complete their preparations for the 
next year's journey. 

VI. 

THE SETTLEMENT OF CASTORLAND. 

The next spring, being in the year 1794, the Desjardines 
brothers and Pharoux, with a large company of men, with 
their surveyors and assistants, took up their toilsome journey 
from Schenectady to their forest possessions, being this time 
fully equipped to begin their settlement. Their route this 
year was up the Mohawk in batteaux to Fort Schuyler, now 
Utica, thence overland across the Deerfield hills sixteen 
miles, to the log house of Baron Steuben, who had then just 
commenced his improvements upon his tract of sixteen 
thousand acres given him by the state. From Steuben's 
it was twenty-four miles further through the trackless forest 
to the high falls on the Black River in Castorland. 

At Fort Schuyler they found a small tavern surrounded 
by a few other buildings, then constituting the whole of 
what is now the city of Utica. In one of these buildings 
there lived Peter Smith, the father of Gerrit Smith. This 
tavern, which occupied the site of Bagg's hotel of to-day, 
was kept by John Post. Our refined and sensitive French- 
men do not speak in their journal in very complimentary 
terms of the entertaiment they found there. But by 
Baron Steuben they were received with all the gentle- 
manly courtesy which so distinguished him, and by all the 
marks of favor to which their rank and accomplishments 
entitled them. 



CASTORLAND. 1 63 

Upon the heights near Steuben's they obtained the first 
grand view of the Level Belt of the Northern Wilderness, 
that lay stretched out from their feet to the dimly distant 
border of the St. Lawrence. "Like Moses from Pisgah's 
summit," says Dr. Hough, "so they from the highest crest 
of the Steuben hills could see the level blue horizon of the 
distant Castorland, while the dusky lines of deeper shadows 
and brighter spots basking in the sunlight, spoke of happy 
valleys and sunny slopes in their future homes."* 

The difficulties of the journey then still before them can 
scarcely be imagined by the reader of to-day. At length 
they reached their tract on the welcome banks of the Black 
River, and began their labors. But there is no space in 
these pages to follow them in all their operations, in their 
sore trials and their bitter disappointments, their final dis- 
comfiture and utter failure. 

Suffice it to say that they began a little settlement on the 
banks of the Black River, at the place now called Lyons 
Falls. That they surveyed their lands and laid out one of 
their cities, Castorville, on the Beaver River, at a place now 
called Beaverton, opposite the little station now called Cas- 
torland, in memory of their enterprise. That they laid out 
their other city, the lake port, which they named "City of 
Basle," at what is now Dexter, below Watertown, and in 
1795 they founded the present village of Carthage. That 
Pharoux was accidentally drowned in the river at Water- 
town in the fall of 1795. That Desjardines gave up the 
agency in despair in 1797, and was succeeded by Rodolphe 
Tinier, "Member of the Sovereign Council of Berne," who 
in turn gave place to Gouverneur Morris in 1800, and that 

* Lecture at Lowville Academy, 1868. 



164 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

the lands finally became the property of James Donatien, 
Le Ray de Chaumont, his associates and grantees. 

" After toils and many troubles, self-exile for many years, 
Long delays and sad misfortunes, man's regrets and woman's tears. 
Unfulfilled the brilliant outset, broken as a chain of sand. 
Were the golden expectations by Grande Rapides' promised land." 



VII. 

DEATH OF PIERRE PHAROUX. 

One of the saddest incidents in the story of Castorland is 
the "death of Pharoux at the falls of Watertown, in 1795. 
In September of that year, after the river had been swollen 
by heavy rains, Pharoux set out with Brodhead, Tassart 
and others, on a journey to Kingston, on the St. Lawrence. 
In passing down the river npon a raft, they were drawn over 
the falls. Mr. Brodhead and three men were saved, but 
Pharoux and all the others were drowned. The survivors 
made unremitting search for Pharoux's body, but it was not 
found until the following spring. It was washed ashore 
upon an island at the mouth of the Black River, where it 
was found by Benjamin Wright, the surveyor, and by him 
decently buried there. M. Le Ray de Chaumont many 
years afterward caused a marble tablet to be set in the rock 
near his grave, bearing this inscription : 

To THE Memory of 
PETER PHAROUX, 

This Island is Consecrated. 

The reader will remember that the year before his death, 
Pharoux had discovered and named the river Independence 
in Castorland, and had selected a beautiful spot at its 
mouth on the Black River, near a large flat granite rock, for 



CASTORLAND. 165 

his residence. This spot, called by the Desjardines brothers 
Independence Rock, was ever afterward regarded by them 
with melancholy interest. They could not pass it without 
shedding tears to the memory of their long-tried and trust- 
ed friend. Under date of May 28th, 1796, Simon Desjar- 
dines, the elder brother, recorded in his journal : " Landed at 
half-past two at Independence Rock, and visited once more 
this charming spot which had been so beautifully chosen by 
our friend Pharoux as the site for his house. The azaleas 
in full bloom loaded the air with their perfume, and the 
wild birds sang sweetly around their nests, but nature has 
no longer any pleasant sights, nor fragrance, nor music, for 
me." 

And now ancient Castorland may be added to the long 
list of names once famous in the cities of Europe, and long 
celebrated in the forest annals of Northern New York, but 
now forgotten, and found only in history and song. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

SISTERSFIELD. 

That best portion of a good man's life, 
His little, nameless, unremembered acts 
Of kindness and of love. 

— Wordsworth . 

In ancient Castorland, about six miles above the village 
of Carthage, and on the easterly side of the Black River, 
there has long been a small deserted clearing, that is now, 
or but lately was, mostly overgrown with low scrubby pines, 
sweet ferns, and wild blackberry briars. This little clear- 
ing is situated directly opposite the mouth of the Deer 
River, a western branch of the Black River, which there 
enters it after tumbling down in a series of beautiful falls 
and cascades the limestone and slaty terraced hills of the 
eastern slope of the plateau of the Lesser Wilderness, in 
whose swamps and wild meadows it takes its rise. 

Of the falls on the Deer River, the High Falls, about five 
miles above its mouth, near the village of Copenhagen, in 
the town of Denmark, are of exceptional height and beauty. 
The stream there plunges over a perpendicular precipice of 
one hundred and sixty-six feet in height into a deep, yawn- 
ing chasm of more than a mile in length, whose perpendicu- 
lar walls rise, upon one side, to the giddy height of two 
hundred and twenty-five feet. Two miles below the High 
Falls are the celebrated King's Falls, so named from the 
visit of Joseph Bonaparte, the ex-king of Spain, by whom 
they were much admired. The King's Falls are only about 



STSTERSFIELD. 1 67 

fifty feet in height, but they excel even the High Falls in 
their wild picturesque beauty. 

Like many a similar i)lace in the old Wilderness and 
around its borders, this little old deserted clearing has a 
long-forgotten history. It was once known as Sibtersfield, 
and was for many years, at the beginning of the present 
century, the home of a French nobleman who was a refugee 
from the Reign of Terror in France, and whose name was 
Louis Fran9ois de Saint-Michel. 

Saint-Michel had been forester to Louis XVL He was a 
tall, spare man of noble presence and courtly bearing, his 
dress, his manner, his whole appearance, indicating that he 
had been bred in the most polished society of Europe. His 
eye flashed a keen intelligence, but his French vivacity was 
tempered and softened down by a most fervent piety and a 
deep thoughtfulness. But his manners, though elegant, 
were not disdainful, and among his neighbors of the Black 
River valley, of New England lineage, he had many warm 
friends. Among them he never exhibited the ostentatious 
bearing and haughty speech, so often among the character- 
istics of the old nobility of France. Of those who repre- 
sented that ancient but dissolving order, Saint-Michel, in an 
eminent degree, like Le Ray de Chaumont, displayed their 
virtues and graces unalloyed by their vices. Born and bred 
among the dazzling splendors of the French Court of the 
old regime, himself a participator in its most gorgeous pa- 
geants and imposing ceremonies, at the palace of the Tuil- 
leries, in Paris, in the forests of Fontainebleau, and at the 
castles of Blois, the favorite homes of French royalty, it 
was the strange fortune of Saint-Michel to pass his declin- 
ing years in the deep seclusion of this little clearing of Sis- 



I 68 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

tersfield, in Castorland, that has been so long forgotten, on 
the borders of the old Wilderness. 

He was accompanied in his exile by an only daughter, 
Sophie de Saint- Michel, who had been tenderly reared in 
the schools of Paris. His wife had died in early woman- 
hood, leaving this daughter an only child. After the death 
of his wife, Saint-Michel placed his daughter at a convent 
school in Paris. When the Revolution broke out he was 
obliged to flee from France to save his life. On the eve 
of his flight he called at the convent gate for his daughter. 
She was brought to him in disguise, and with her he made 
his escape from France and came to Castorland. In their 
secluded forest home she applied herself to the duties of her 
father's household with a self-sacrificing spirit that did 
much to enliven the gloom of their solitude and to lighten 
the sorrows of their situation. 

Saint-Michel arrived in New York in 1798, and under- 
took the management of Sistersfield, which was a tract of 
twelve hundred acres belonging to three sisters, one named 
Ren^e Jeane Louise, another Reine Marguerite, and the 
third a Mrs. Blake, who were the daughters of Sieur Lam- 
bot of Paris. On this tract of land called Sisterfield Saint- 
Michel built an humble log cabin, on the bank of the Black 
River, where he and his daughter lived for several years in 
the greatest seclusion. His lonely hut was often the tem- 
porary resting place for the hunters and trappers of the 
region, who were charmed with the exquisite grace and 
beauty of his daughter, who, in spite of the tenderness with 
which she had been reared, performed the menial duties of 
her exiled father's household with a cheerfulness and res- 
ignation remarkable for one of her years. After awhile his 



SISTERSFIELD. [69 

daughter married a Frenchman named Louis Marsile. 
Upon the marriage of his daughter, Saint-Michel accom- 
panied her to her new home, which was a Httle south of 
the present village of Deer River, where he died about the 
year 1830. 

But Sieur Saint-Michel found near him in his exile many 
congenial spirits, and many of the friends of his better 
days. Among his near neighbors in Castorland were several 
retired French army officers, and a few miles below Carth- 
age, at Le Rayville, on the Black River, was the elegant 
chateau of James Donatien, Le Ray de Chaumont, another 
French nobleman, who was, as it before appears in these 
pages, largely identified with the landed interests of North- 
ern New York. At Champion, a village five miles west of 
Carthage, lived Samuel A. Tallcott, who was afterward the 
eminent lawyer, and the Attorney General of the State for 
several years. At Le Rayville was Moss Kent, the brother 
of the Chancellor, and Father Pierre Joulin, the cur^ of 
Chaumont in France, who refused to take the constitutional 
oath, and was sent to America by M. de Chaumont, to save 
him from the guillotine. At the hospitable board of Sieur 
de Chaumont, Saint-Michel was always a most welcome 
guest, and there he often met many of the old noblesse of 
France, who were the cherished friends of his early years, 
and whom fickle fortune had, like himself, thrown in exile. 

I have said that Saint-Michel was a man of fervent piety. 
He was so devout that he passed much of his time on his 
knees in prayer. After he was dead, the skin upon his 
knees was found to be callous — it was hardened to the bone 
by almost constant kneeling. But just before his death, 
he forgot his Latin, the language in which all his prayers 



I 70 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

were said, and he mournfully told his attendants that he 
could no longer pray. 

yVnd now, reader, as you pass on northerly from Castor- 
land station, on the Utica and Black River Railroad, you 
will soon come to the little station called Deer River. 
When you arrive there, look to the eastward across the wide 
interval meadows, and across the Black River, and about 
half a mile from you, you will see the gently rising slope of 
the old clearing in Sistersfield that was so long the forest 
home of the noble Frenchman, the exiled Louis Francois 
de Saint-Michel, one of the early settlers of Castorland. 



CHAPTER XX. 

JOHN BROWN'S TRACT. 

The sounding cataract 
Haunted me like a passion ; the tall rock, 
The mountain and the deep and gloomy wood, 
Their colors and their forms, were then to me 
An appetite, a feeling and a love. 

— lVords7vorih. 

I. 

JOHN BROWN OF PROVIDENCE. 

"John Brown's Tract" has long been a familiar generic 
name for the whole of the Great Wilderness, but John 
Brown's Tract proper comprises only a small part of the 
wilderness, lying on its western slope, near the head waters 
of the streams that flow into the Black River. 

John Brown was one of the richest merchants and be- 
longed to one of the oldest and most noted families of 
Providence, Rhode Island. He was born in the year 1736, 
and was a descendant of Rev. Chadd Brown, who was 
driven into Providence with Roger Williams in 1636. In 
1772, John Brown led the party that destroyed the British 
schooner Gaspee in Narragansett Bay. For twenty years 
he was the treasurer of Brown University, named in honor 
of his family, and he laid the corner-stone of its edifice. In 
1779 he was elected to the Continental Congress, and served 
therein two years. He is described as " a man of magnifi- 
cent projects, and extraordinary enterprise." He was the 
first merchant in Providence who traded with China and 
the east. But even he failed to subdue the old wilderness. 

In November, 1794, James Greenleaf, of New York 



172 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

bought of Samuel Ward, then with WilHam Constable, the 
owner of the greater part of Macomb's Purchase, the tract 
of land containing two hundred and ten thousand acres, 
since known as John Brown's Tract. It stretched en- 
tirely across the northern part of Herkimer county into 
Hamilton on the east and into Lewis on the west. The year 
after his purchase, Greenleaf mortgaged the tract to Philip 
Livingston, for the sum of $38,000. He also gave a second 
mortgage to John Brown and others, for large sums of 
money. Aaron Burr and John Julius Angerstein, the famous 
Russian merchant and patron of the fine arts, of London, 
also had some interest in this tract. But Greenleaf failed 
to keep up the payments, and in 1798 Livingston was oblig- 
ed to foreclose his mortgage. The whole tract was bid in 
at the sale by John Brown for the sum of $33,000. 

The next year, 1799, John Brown visited his tract, and 
remained a part of the summer. He caused it to be sur- 
veyed, and divided it into eight townships. Number i he 
called Industry; No. 2, Enterprise; No. 3, Perseverance; 
No. 4, Unanimity ; No. 5, Frugality ; No. 6, Sobriety ; No. 
7, Economy ; No. 8, Regularity. He made a clearing on 
No. 7, cut a road into it, built a grist-mill, saw-mill, and 
several log houses. In that year also, his agent, James 
Sheldon, moved with his family on to the tract. For two or 
three years after, John Brown made toilsome journeys to his 
forest possessions, but he died in 1803, leaving his tract a 
wilderness. In the expressive language of Thomas Sheldon, 
a son of James, who was giving his testimony in open court, 
in Lewis county. Justice Bacon presiding, in relation to this 
tract, in a suit recently pending in the Supreme Court, in 



JOHN BROWN'S TRACT. I 73 

which it was the subject in dispute :* "The tract was then a 
wilderness, and is now." These few words tell the whole 
story of Brown's Tract. 

II. 

THE HERRESHOFF MANOR. 

Charles Frederick Herreshoff was a son-in-law of John 
Brown. He married a daughter of John Brown, the widow 
Francis, the mother of John Brown Francis, afterward Gov- 
ernor of Rhode Island. 

About the year 1812 Herreshoff went on to this tract. He 
cleared over two thousand acres, built thirty or forty new 
buildings, drove in cattle and a flock of three hundred me- 
rino sheep. He built a forge and opened and worked a 
mine of iron ore. He spent his own fortune there and all 
the money that he could borrow from his friends. But the 
rugged old Wilderness would not be subdued. When he 
entered the forest he made this declaration to a friend : " I 
will settle the tract or settle myself." He settled himself. 
In December, 1819, his money was all gone and his friends 
had deserted him. One day, in a fit of utter despondency, 
he went out of his dwelling to a lonely spot on the tract 
that had been so long the scene of his fruitless endeavors, 
and ended his life by a pistol shot. 

Herreshoff was a Prussian by birth. He was over six 
feet in height, well-formed, and of commanding presence. 
He was a man of great energy and perseverance, of high 
culture, and the most engaging manners, but extremely 

*John Brown Francis vs. Marshal Shedd, Jr., and others. Edward A. 
Brown, of counsel for plaintift' : Charles D. Adams, of counsel for de- 
fendants. 



174 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

proud and aristocratic. He was somewhat visionary in his 
schemes, and not so well adapted to the settlement of a new 
country as many men of less enterprise. After all his 
efforts he made but one ton of iron at his forge. Every 
pound of it cost him more than a dollar in gold. His wife 
did not approve of his forest undertaking, and never went 
on to the tract. Herreshoff was fond of calling his settle- 
ment "The Manor." Like Gilliland, he had dreams of a 
magnificent baronial estate rising in feudal grandeur in the 
wild American forest, like those more favored ones along 
the Hudson — himself its princely lord. At his grave in 
Boonville, Oneida county, is a modest marble slab, bearing 
this inscription : 

CHARLES 

FREDERICK 

HERRESHOFF. 

Obiit Dec. 19, 

1819, 

^TAT 50. 

ni. 

Arnold's. 
After the failure and death of Herreshoff, his little settle- 
ment was soon deserted by his tenantry, and went swiftly 
into decay and ruin. The deserted dwellings were some- 
times the temporary resting places of the wandering hunter 
or trapper, and sometimes the homes of the wild beasts and 
birds of the forest. It was not until about the year 1832 
that the premises were again more permanently occupied. 
In that year the old Herreshoff manor was leased to the 
famous hunter and trapper, Nathaniel Foster, who moved 



JOHN BROWN'S TRACT. I 75 

on with his family, and took possession of the wild forest 
retreat. But Foster's unfortunate affair with the Indian 
Drid rendered it unsafe, in his opinion, for him to remain 
thus exposed to the vengeful rifles of Drid's relatives, and 
so he removed from the tract, after remaining but three or 
four years. The tourist is now shown the grave of Drid, 
not far from the old forge, and the point at the bend of the 
river where he was shot by Foster is known as Indian Point. 

After Foster had retired from the scene another hunter 
went in with his family, to reside there, whose name was 
Otis Arnold. Arnold moved in about the year 1837, with 
his wife and one child, and took possession of the old Her- 
reshoff house. Here he lived and raised a large family of 
children, keeping a sort of forest hostelry, until his death 
in 1868. 

In the autumn of 1855, the Hon. Amelia M. Murray, 
maid of honor to Queen Victoria, while making a tour of the 
United States and Canada, went through the lake belt of 
the wilderness, over the route described in a former chapter. 
Her companions were Gov. Horatio Seymour, the Gov- 
ernor's neice, and other friends. On their way they stopped, 
of course, at Arnold's. But I will let the Lady Amelia tell 
the story in her own words, as written in her diary, under 
date of September 20th, 1855 : "Mr. Seymour remained to 
make arrangements with the guides, while his neice and I 
walked on to Arnold's farm. There we found Mrs. Arnold 
and six daughters. These girls, aged from twelve to twenty, 
were placed in a row against one wall of the shanty, with 
looks so expressive of astonishment, that I felt puzzled to 
account for their manner, till their mother informed us they 
had never before seen any other woman than herself! I 



176 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

could not elicit a word from them, but, at last, when I 
begged for a little milk, the eldest went and brought me a 
glass. I then remembered that we had met a single hunter 
rowing himself on the Moose River, who called out, 'Where 
on 'arth do they women come from.?' And our after ex- 
perience fully explained why ladies are such rare birds in 
that locality." 

But Arnold's life went out in a dark tragedy that stained 
the old wilderness with human blood once more. In Sep- 
tember, 1868, in a fit of uncontrollable anger, occasioned by 
a quarrel with him about a dog collar, he shot and killed a 
guide named James Short, of Warrensburgh, Essex Co., 
who was resting at the forge. But instant remorse succeed- 
ed his anger. Proceeding to Nick's Lake, a favorite resort 
of his near by, he filled his pockets with stones, and tied a 
large one to his neck. He then stepped into his hunting 
boat, and paddling out into the middle of the lake, plunged 
into its clear, cold waters to rise no more. In view of Otis 
Arnold's long and blameless life, and of his thousand acts 
of kindness to many a wanderer in the forest, who can help 
but wish it were possible to throw, in some way, the mantle 
of charity over his dreadful crime. 

And now, after writing all this of the famous John 
Brown's Tract, in this our country's Centennial year, all 
that can be said of it may still be summed up in the ex- 
pressive words of Sheldon on the witness stand: "The 
tract was then a wilderness, and is now." 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE HUNTER FOSTER AND THE INDIAN DRID. 

The hunting tribes of air and earth 
Respect the brethren of their birth ; 
Nature, who loves the claim of kind 
Less cruel chase to each assigned. 
The falcon poised on soaring wing 
Watches the wild-duck by the spring; 
The slow-hound wakes the fox's lair, 
The greyhound presses on the hare ; 
The eagle pounces on the lamb. 
The wolf devours the fleecy dam ; 
E'en tiger fell, and sullen bear 
Their likeness and their lineage spare. 
Man, only, mars kind nature's plan, 
And turns the fierce pursuit on man. 

— Sir Walter Scott, 

I. 

NATHANIEL FOSTER. 

Nathaniel Foster has long been known in forest story as 
one of the most famous hunters and trappers of the Great 
Wilderness. Like Nicholas Stoner and Jonathan Wright, 
Foster belonged to a race of hunters and trappers that has 
long since passed away. They were men of iron mould 
who had survived the savage Indian warfare of the Revolu- 
tion with bitter remembrance of its cruel massacres and 
burning dwellings. They frequented the forest partly to 
obtain a subsistence, but more from that wild love of it 
which is the sure out-come of a familiarity with its trials and 
dangers in its savage state. The Indians left their famous 
beaver hunting country, their old Couch-sac/i-ra-ge, with 
the greatest reluctance. Long after the Revolution, and 
for many of the early years of the present century, they 
made, singly or in bands, annual visits to their ancient hunt- 
ing grounds. Although not always hostile, they disputed 
the favorite haunts of the beaver, the moose and the deer 
23 



I 78 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

inch by inch with the white hunters. And in the secluded 
depths of the old forest there was many a desperate en- 
counter between the single white hunter and the lone In- 
dian, in which only one lived to tell the tale, or more often 
to die afterward with the awful secret in his bosom. 

Like the forest ranger of the Canadian woods and waters, 
the hunter of the olden time, by his years of "bush-rang- 
ing," had become spoiled for civilization, and, like him, had 
become in a great measure the adopted child of nature. 
For him the voice of Nature, as she has for us all, had a 
wild, sweet charm that drew him irresistibly into her savage 
haunts. "Rude as he was," says Parkman, of the Canadian 
forest ranger — the coiireur de bois — " her voice [Nature's,] 
may not always have been meaningless for one who knew 
her haunts so well ; deep recesses where, veiled in foliage, 
some wild shy rivulet steals with timid music through 
breathless caves of verdure, * * or the stern depths of 
immemorial forests, dim and silent as a cavern columned 
with innumerable trunks, each like an Atlas, upholding its 
world of leaves and sweating perpetual moisture down its 
dark and channelled rind ; some strong in youth, some 
grisly with decrepit age, nightmares of strange distortion, 
gnarled and knotted with wens and goitres ; roots inter- 
twined beneath, like serpents petrified in an agony of dis- 
torted strife ; green and glistening mosses carpeting the 
rough ground mantling the rocks, turning pulpy stumps to 
mounds of verdure, and swathing fallen trunks, as bent in 
the impotence of rottenness they lie outstretched over knoll 
and hollow, like mouldering reptiles of the primeval world, 
while around and on and through them springs the young 
growth that fattens on their decay, — the forest devouring 



HUNTER FOSTER AND INDIAN DRID. I 79 

its own dead." Such were the forest scenes with which the 
old hunters were the most familiar in their daily vocation. 

Nathaniel Foster was born in what is now Vernon, Wind- 
ham county, Vt., in 1767. At the age of twenty-four he 
married Miss Jemima, the daughter of Amos Streeter, of 
New Hampshire, and emigrated to Salisbury, Herkimer 
county, then nearly surrounded by the old wilderness. 
Wild game was exceedingly plentiful there at that time, 
and being eager in the pursuit of it, he soon became a fa- 
mous hunter and trapper. Volumes almost have been writ- 
ten of his daring exploits in the forest. He was nearly six 
feet in height, his frame was well-knit, large and muscular. 
His features were strongly marked, his eyes dark, his hair a 
sandy brown, and his countenance sallow. From the days 
of his boyhood Foster had nursed a deadly hatred of the 
Indian, and marvelous stories are told of the numbers slain 
by him during his long career in the forest. 

In the year 1832, game becoming scarce around his home 
in the Mohawk valley, Foster removed with his family to 
the long deserted Herreshoff Manor, where he could be 
nearer his congenial haunts. 

II. 

DRID. 

Foster's only neighbors on the tract were three bachelor 
hunters, named William S. Wood, David Chase and Willard 
Johnson, and a St. Regis Indian, whose real name was Peter 
Waters, but who always, in the forest, went by the name of 
Drid. Drid was a morose, quarrelsome Indian, who often 
threatened Foster's life, although Foster and his family had 



l8o NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

done him many acts of kindness. Upon one occasion, when 
they had been debating about something, Drid said to 
Foster: 

"There is no law here. If I kill you, I kill you, and if 
you kill me, you kill me." 

"I will not make any such bargain as that," replied Fos- 
ter. "I do not wish to harm you, and you have no reason 
to feel like that toward me." 

On another occasion Drid was heard to say, "Me got a 
bad heart. Me put a bullet through old Foster." 

At length, on the morning of the 17th day of September, 
1833, Foster and Drid had another encounter, in which 
Drid attempted to take Foster's life. They were separated 
by the hunters present, but not until Drid had severely cut 
Foster's arm with his knife in attempting to stab him to the 
heart. 

In the course of an hour after this, Drid started up the 
river in his canoe, bound for the lakes, in the company of 
two white hunters, who were in their own boat. After Drid 
had left, Foster took down his trusty rifle, and taking an 
overland course on foot across a bend in the river, reached 
a point on the stream about two miles above the Forge, be- 
fore Drid arrived there. Stepping down to the edge of the 
bank, and pointing his rifle through the bushes that thickly 
lined the shore, Foster shot Drid through the heart as Drid 
was paddling his canoe past the spot where Foster stood. 
In killing Drid, Foster shot between the two white hunters 
as they passed along between him and the Indian, one 
sitting in each end of their boat. But Foster made no mis- 
takes with his unerring rifle. Foster then hastened home- 
ward by the way he came. The two hunters also returned 



HUNTER FOSTER AND INDIAN DRID. l8l 

at once in their boat to the Forge, and when they arrived 
at Foster's home they found Foster lying quietly in his bed 
as if nothing had happened.. 

But Foster was arrested, indicted, and tried for the mur- 
der of Drid. His trial came on at the Herkimer Oyer and 
Terminer in September, 1834, Justice Hiram Denio of the 
Circuit Court, presiding, and Jonas Cleland, John B. Dy- 
gert, Abijah Osborn, and Richard Herendeen, Judges of the 
Common Pleas, sitting to form the court. James B. Hunt, 
the District Attorney, and Simeon Ford, were for the 
people, and E. P. Hurlbut, Joshua A. Spencer, A. Hack- 
ley, and Lauren Ford of counsel for the defence. The trial 
excited unusual interest, and the court room was crowded 
from day to day as it progressed. The prosecution proved 
to the jury the facts of the killing as above set forth, and 
rested the case. The counsel for the prisoner offered in 
evidence the several previous threats made by Drid against 
the life of Foster. His Honor the presiding judge and 
Judge Dygert were of the opinion that the threats made 
previous to the homicide were not admissable. But, for the 
first time in his life. Judge Denio found himself over-ruled 
by the Judges of the Common Pleas. The other three 
judges, being a majority of the court, admitted the evidence, 
and the case was given to the jury. After but two hours' 
deliberation, the jury returned into court with a verdict of 
not guilty. 

Foster, overcome by the excitement, when the jury came 
in, was almost insensible. But when the words not guilty 
fairly struck his senses, he rose to his full height, and 
stretching out his arms wide over the heads of the silent 
spectators, exclaimed " God bless you all ! God bless the 



1 82 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

people!" Then rushing out of the court room, he bestrode 
his well-known hunter's pony, and rode away to his home 
in the forest. 

But Foster dare not remain long on Brown's Tract, lest 
the relatives of Drid should seek to revenge his death. 
Yet the friends of Drid never troubled Foster. They came 
down from St. Regis and took Drid's widow and children 
back with them to their home on the St. Lawrence. As for 
Drid, they said "He was a bad Indian. Let him go." 

Foster removed with his family to Boonville, Oneida Co., 
and from there to the forest wilds of Northern Pennsyl- 
vania, where he again for a time followed his favorite pur- 
suits. But his mind never seemed quite at rest after killing 
Drid. He at length returned from Pennsylvania to Boon- 
ville, but he dare not venture out of doors in the dark. 
Foster died in Boonville, in March, 1841, aged 74 years.* 

* Trappers of New York, by Jeptha R. Simms. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

SMITH'S LAKE. 



Since in each scheme of life I've failed, 
And disappointment seems entail'd ; 
Since all on earth I valu'd most, 
My guide, my stay, my friend is lost. 
O Solitude, now give me rest, 
And hush the tempest in my breast ; 
O gently deign to guide my feet 
To your hermit-trodden seat ; 
Where I may live at last my own. 
Where I may die at last unknown. 

— Grainger. 



In most countries, and in all ages of the world there 
have been men who, actuated by some motive or other, 
have lived apart from the society of their fellows, and led 
lonely lives in desert places. In tracing from memory and 
tradition what little is known of the solitary lives of the 
hermit hunters of the Great Wilderness, it will be seen 
that our own country is no exception to this rule. Of some 
of these hermit hunters, traditions still remain along the 
borders of their exploits in the chase, of the motives which 
incited them to abandon the world, of their manner of 
life, of their sufferings and death. 

One of the most charming lakes in the Lake Belt of the 
Wilderness is Smith's Lake. It lies at the head waters of 
the Beaver River, in the county of Hamilton, about ten 
miles as the crow flies north of Raquette Lake, and four 
miles |o the west of Little Tupper's Lake. Ten miles to 
the north of it, lies Cranberry Lake, on the Oswegatchie, in 
St. Lawrence county, and ten miles westerly are the lakes 
of the Red Horse chain, while between it and the Rac^uette 
is Beach's Lake. Smith's Lake is now frequented mostly 



184 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

by hunting parties that approach it from Lowville, a station 
on the Utica and Black River Railroad, on the western side 
of the wilderness. On the borders of this lake are several 
hunting lodges. Deer are still abundant in its vicinity, and 
brook trout abound in all the waters near it. There is no 
place in the whole wilderness more secluded than this, and 
none where more game can be found. 

Some time about the year 1830, a hunter named David 
Smith took up his abode on the shore of this lake in what 
was then and for many years afterward an unfrequented 
and pathless forest. Smith was one of those brooding 
" problematic characters," whom we sometimes meet and 
who we often think belong to that land which borders on 
the realms of insanity. This border land is, I fear, broader * 
than we think for, and is more thickly peopled than many 
of us will readily admit. It is said that in early life Smith 
married a wife whom he tenderly loved and cared for, but 
who died shortly after their marriage. Her untimely death 
sent him a hermit into the depths of this forest, where he 
could brood in solitude and silence over his great grief. 
About the year 1820, while the first settlers at Number 
Four were beginning their little clearings near Beaver Lake, 
Smith pushed on up the river twelve miles further and built 
his first rude shanty at Stillwater, which became long after- 
ward the hermitage of James O'Kane. At Stillwater, for 
some ten years. Smith lived a solitary life, being its first in- 
habitant, and followed his occupation as a hunter an^ trap- 
per. At length, about 1830, Stillwater became too much 
frequented by hunting and fishing parties, and Smith again 
went further up the river, and settled at the lake which has 
since borne his name. Stillwater was then without a per- 



SMITH'S LAKE. 1 85 

manent occupant until James O'Kane took up his abode 
there. Smith made on the border of this wild lake a little 
clearing, wherein he raised a few potatoes, and in which he 
built a rude log shanty for his habitation. In this secluded 
spot he spent much of his time in hunting and fishing, and 
in fitting up a sort of rude museum of the stuffed skins of 
the wild animals and birds which he had contrived to catch. 
In the vSummer he would sometimes take his little collec- 
tion into the back settlements for exhibition. On such oc- 
casions his appearance was wild and grotesque in the ex- 
treme. Clad in skins with the fur outward, and hardly to 
be distinguished from a wild animal himself, he often ex- 
hibited with much skill, on a sort of revolving framework 
which he had made, his well preserved specimens of moose, 
deer, bears, foxes, wolves, wildcats and birds. During the 
extreme cold of winter, when game was scarce and it was 
difficult to reach the settlements through the deep snows, 
he sometimes suffered from the want of provisions and 
other necessaries. On one occasion he accidentally choked 
himself while eating a piece of moose meat, and being un- 
able to remove the obstruction, went out, with infinite pain 
and labor, a distance of forty miles, to Fenton's at Number 
Four, before he found relief. He could breathe, but could 
not swallow, and nearly perished from hunger. 

For fifteen years he lived this wild hermit life, pursuing 
his favorite vocation as a hunter and trapper, unmolested 
in his far away forest home. But when the fishing and 
hunting parties from the outer world began to find their 
way in to his lake. Smith left his no longer secluded hiding 
place in disgust at what he considered their intrusion upon 

his solitude. It is said that he"^sought another congenial 
24 



I 86 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

home in the far west, and has never since been heard 
of. His little clearing is now thickly covered with a luxu- 
riant growth of young forest trees, among which his lonely 
deserted hearthstone is crumbling into ruins. But the 
beautiful lake on whose shores he spent so many years, still 
commemorates his name. If the heart-history of this 
brooding lover of solitude, this hermit hunter of the wil- 
derness, could be written, it would doubtless move us to 
pity his sorrows and to drop the mantle of charity over his 
eccentricities. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

NUMBER FOUR. 

How the sacred calm that breathes around 

Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease, 
In still small accents whispering from the ground 

A grateful earnest of eternal peace. 

There scattered oft, the earliest of the year. 
By hands unseen, are showers of violets found. 

The red-breast loves to build and warble there. 
And little footsteps lightly print the ground. 

— Rejected verses of Gray's Elegy. 

I. 

One of the oldest and most frequented places of forest 
resort in the Great Wilderness, on its western border, is 
Number Four, in Brown's Tract. 

The Beaver River, which flows from Smith's Lake, near 
the Raquette, passes in its course through Brown's Tract, 
and on township Number Four spreads out into Beaver 
Lake, which lies within a mile of Lake Francis. Lake 
Francis was so called in honor of Gov. John Brown Fran- 
cis, a proprietor of the tract. 

There is not a lake in the whole wilderness more beauti- 
ful than Beaver Lake, as seen from Fenton's, near by, in the 
soft hazy light of a sultry August day. Surrounded by its 
deeply indented, thickly wooded shores, it then appears 
like a pool of liquid amber, sleeping in an emerald basin. 
It is a sweet picture of repose, typifying that sense of per- 
fect rest which steals over us nowhere else but in the deep 
stillness of the woods and fields, far away from the cease- 
less din of crowded cities. 

Since the settlement of the Black River valley, at the be- 
ginning of the present century. Number Four at Beaver 



1 88 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

Lake has been one of the favorite resorts of hunters and 
fishermen and summer pleasure-seekers. In the month of 
June, 1818, the first fishing party visited Beaver Lake. 
This party consisted of Charles Dayan, Cornelius Low, 
Russell Parish, Heman Stickney, Otis Whipple and Samuel 
Rogers, with Thomas Puffer as guide. Some of these men 
afterward became distinguished in the councils of the state 
and nation. They encamped for eight days at the " Fish 
Hole," near the inlet of the lake at the mouth of a little 
stream which they named Sunday Brook, in memory of the 
first day of their encampment there. The next year Ziba 
Knox, Alexander W. Stow and James T. Watson encamped 
for a week at Beaver Lake. These were the pioneers of the 
long succession of visitors, who, for nearly fifty years have 
every summer sought relief from cankering care in the inno- 
cent abandon of this wild forest retreat. 

But Number Four, like many another place in the old 
wilderness, has been the scene of a fruitless attempt at set- 
tlement. The first settler at Number Four was Ephraim 
Craft, who followed in the trail of the first fishing parties 
in the year 1820, and began his clearing on the west side of 
Beaver River beyond Fenton's, on what is now called the 
Champlain road. No signs of this early clearing now re- 
main. 

In the year 1822, Gov. John Brown Francis, of Rhode 
Island, had succeeded his grandfather, John Brown, in the 
ownership of township Number Four. For the purpose of 
effecting a settlement of his lands. Gov. Francis offered a 
deed of one hundred acres each as a gift to the first ten 
settlers on township Number Four near Beaver Lake. At- 
tracted by this inducement, ten men accepted his offer, and 



NUMBER FOUR. I 89 

ten families soon moved in, began their clearings, built their 
log houses, planted their first crops, and commenced in 
earnest the life of pioneers in the wilderness. Saw-mills 
were soon built, various improvements were made, and in a 
few years more than a thousand acres were cleared and 
fenced off into farms and gardens. A schoolhouse was 
built, and a little school of more than sixty scholars gath- 
ered in. Within ten years after the first clearing was made 
some seventy-five settlers were trying their fortunes at Num- 
ber Four. 

But it is the old sad story of the wilderness that will not 
be tamed by man. The soil was none of the best ; the cli- 
mate was cold, the summers were short, and the winters 
were long ; the markets were distant, and the roads to them 
through the forest were almost impassible during much of 
the year. One by one the settlers, growing weary of the 
undertaking, sold out their improvements or abandoned 
them, and with their families left the forest hamlet, to seek 
other homes, until within twenty-five years after the first 
house was built, only three families were left at Number 
Four. These three remaining families were those of Isaac 
Wetmore, Chauncey Smith and Orrin Fenton. Chauncey 
Smith has long been a famous hunter and trapper, and is 
still living there at an advanced age. Isaac Wetmore died 
there in 1853, and was buried in the little burial place now 
overgrown with bushes and brambles near his former home. 
And now the old dwellings, with two or three exceptions, 
have all disappeared, the schoolhouse and its children are 
no longer to be seen there. The fences are gone, and the 
once cleared fields are fast reverting to their original forest 
state. 



igo 



NORTHERN NEW YORK. 



II- 

No one of the many settlers of Number Four became so 
identified with its history as Orrin Fenton. Fenton moved 
to Number Four with his family in the year 1826, and lived 
there nearly forty years. For many years Fenton 's house 
became, from necessity, there being few other accommoda- 
tions, a forest hostelry, open for the entertainment of the 
hunters and pleasure seekers who so often visited the re- 
gion. Many a tired and half famished traveller remembers 
with gratitude how, after a day's tramp in the woods, he re- 
ceived the kindly attentions of Fenton's welcome fireside, 
presided over so gracefully by his busy wife. Should this 
page meet the eye of any who visited " Fenton's" in days 
gone by, many a pleasing reminiscence will be called up, 
and many a savory repast of delicious trout and venison, 
cooked and served as no one but Mrs. Fenton could cook 
and serve them, will be remembered. 

But Fenton at length, like the other settlers at Number 
Four, sold out his forest home and reluctantly left it to re- 
side there no more. The person to whom he sold it, how- 
ever, kept the place but a few years, and now it is owned 
by Mr. Fenton's son Charles, who, as his father did, now 
keeps there a famous forest hostelry, overlooking Beaver 
Lake in its wild enchanting beauty. 

"Fenton — who shall or can," says W.Hudson Stephens in 
his Historical Notes, " chronicle the experiences of his 
heart-life of forty years in the wilderness. In the memory 
of how many a laborer and wanderer is his cheerful, tidy 
home treasured, and the kindly attention of his forest re- 
sort recalled with grateful recollections. Amid such scenes 



NUMBER FOUR. I9I 

of wild beauty the genius of a Wordsworth was roused into 
active utterance of the melody of ' a heart grown holier as 
it traced the beauty of the world below.' The silence and 
solitude of the northern forest has had its charms for him. 
Who will say his heart's earlier aspirations have not been as 
effectually satisfied in the solitudes of the uncultivated for- 
est as if he had moved amid the busy haunts of the crowd- 
ed city .'' This sportsman by land and stream, this forest 
farmer, looks back upon woodland scene and experience 
with sighs. How true that while hope writes the poetry of 
the boy, memory writes that of the man," 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

JAMES O'KANE. 

O Solitude, romantic maid ! 

Whether by nodding towers you tread, 

Or haunt the desert s trackless gloom, 

Or hover o'er the yawning tomb ; 

Or climb the Andes' clifted side, 

Or by the Nile's coy source abide ; 

Or, starting from your half-year's sleep, 

From Hecla view the thawing deep ; 

Or at the purple dawn of day, 

Tadmor's marble waste survey ; 

You, recluse again I woo. 

And again your steps pursue. 

— Grainger. 

On the Beaver River, in the depths of the forest, twelve 
miles above Number Four, is a hunter's shantying ground, 
long known as Stillwater, but sometimes now called Ward- 
well's. 

The first occupant of this old hunting station was David 
Smith, afterward known as the hermit of Smith's Lake, 
many miles further up the river. The first ten years of 
Smith's hermit life were passed in this spot, but the early 
fishing parties coming in, disturbed his seclusion, and he 
went further up the river, where he could find a still 
deeper solitude. 

Ten years or more after Smith left Stillwater, about the 
year 1844, another hermit of the woods took up his abode 
there, named James, or as he was always familiarly called 
Jimmy O'Kane. For twelve years his shanty stood on the 
banks of Twitchell Creek, a confluent of the Beaver River 
at Stillwater, near the old Champlain road that leads from 
Number Four past Raquette Lake. In solitude and alone 
lived Jimmy all these weary years amid the dreary scene. 



JAMES O'KANE. I93 

Jimmy lived mostly by hunting and fishing, but as he grew 
old and feeble he was too clumsy a hunter to take many 
deer, although they were numerous on his hunting-ground, 
and so he depended mostly on smaller game and fish. His 
method of preserving game and laying in supplies was a 
model one, in its way, for convenience and economy. He 
kept in his shanty what he called his "poultry barrel." In 
this he salted down indiscriminately all the small animals 
and birds he could catch. In times of scarcity his poultry 
barrel was his never-failing resource. He was, however, 
generally well supplied with better food, and vvas always 
hospitably inclined to all the passing hunters. 

Why Jimmy thus absented himself from " the haunts and 
the converse of men " and voluntarily chose this mode of 
life, still remains a mystery. Whether he became disgusted 
with the trials and vexations always incident to this poor 
life of ours, with the perfidy of man or the frailty of wo- 
man, or whether he sought in the retirement and seclusion 
of the wilderness the opportunity for that meditation on 
things spiritual and eternal which he deemed necessary for 
his soul's repose, or whether he was an ardent student of na- 
ture, and loved to gaze upon the brightness of silver waters, 
the loveliness of the wild flower, or upon the grandeur 
of forest scenery, rocks, hills, mountains, lakes and streams 
stretching afar off from his solitary home, or whether the 
sports of the chase were his only solace, must be left to the 
conjecture of the curious observer of the changing vagaries 
of the human heart. A worn copy of "The Gospels" and 
a work on the " Piscatory Art " constituted his scanty 
library. His only constant companions were his dog and 
gun. He was the owner of several small boats that he 
25 



194 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

would sometimes let to passing hunters on their way to 
Smith's Lake, and many a frequenter of the wilderness re- 
members with pleasure the night spent under Jimmy's pro- 
tecting roof. 

But at length he grew so old and feeble that he was no 
longer able to hunt and fish, and he depended for his sub- 
sistence mostly upon the generosity of passing sportsmen, 
who always kept him well supplied with food. 

In the month of May, 1857, I passed his hermitage on 

my way to the lakes beyond. He was then quite feeble 

from disease and exposure. It was the first day of the 

spring in which he had been able to crawl out to the bridge 

across the creek, and set his poles for fish. In December 

following he grew worse, and on the first day of the new 

year he died, aged about seventy years. His body was 

found lying on his rude bed, near the fire-place, his head 

and shoulders somewhat elevated, his cap drawn over his 

eyes, and his hands crossed upon his breast. 

" He passed from earth, breathing a prayer, 
Far from the world's rude voices, far away ; 
* Oh ! hear and judge him gently ; 't was his last. 

" I come alone, and faint I come, 
To Nature's arms I flee ; 
The green woods take their wanderer home, 
But Thou, O Father ! may I turn to Thee ?" 

While the busy throngs of crowded cities were reveling 
in the gay festivities which ushered in the " glad New 
Year," Jimmy, sick and alone upon his couch in the far-off 
forest wilds heard a footstep upon the threshold of his 
shanty door, and the " King of Terrors" stood before him. 
He pulled his cap down over his face, and was softly car- 
ried across the dark waters. 



i 



JAMES O'KANE. I 95 

The incoming of the New Year was followed by one of 
those terriffic storms of wind and snow so common in the 
wilderness. When the storm cleared away, some passing 
hunters, seeing no smoke issuing from Jimmy's chimney, 
opened his shanty door and found him " Dead, dead and 
alone." 

On the 5th day of the month a party of men waded 
through the deep snow from Watson, near thirty miles away, 
to bury the dead hunter. They laid him to rest upon a 
bluff near his cabin which he had himself selected, the 
year before, for his burial place. To mark the spot they 
erected a rude wooden monument at the head and a boat 
paddle at the foot of his solitary grave. For this kindly 
deed, their names are worthy of remembrance. The men 
who thus buried him were Elder Elihu Robinson, Ex-Sheriff 
Peter Kirley, Joseph Garmon, William Glenn, E. Harvey, 
Thomas Kirley, F. Robinson and Aretas Wetmore. Thus 
lived, died, and was buried one of the hermit hunters of 
the Great Wilderness. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

JAMES T. WATSON. 

It suffices. What suffices ? 

All suffices reckoned rightly ; 
Spring shall bloom where now the ice is, 

Roses make the bramble sightlyj 

And the quickened sun shine brightly, 

And the latter wind blow lightly, 
And my garden teem with spices. 

— Christina Rossetti. 

I. 

At the close of the last century and the beginning of the 
present, large grants of land, from time to time, were made 
by the state to speculators in wild lands. The largest of 
these grants in Northern New York was Macomb's Purchase. 
This vast tract lay in the angle between the St. Lawrence 
River and Lake Ontario. It embraced almost the whole of 
Franklin, St. Lawrence, Jefferson and Lewis counties, with 
a part of Herkimer. It contained 3,816,660 acres. The 
purchase was made on the loth of January, 1792, and the 
price was eight pence an acre. Alexander Macomb, Dan- 
iel McCormick and William Constable were equally inter- 
ested in this purchase. But soon after the purchase Ma- 
comb became insolvent, and Constable became the principal 
owner of the tract. William Constable served honorably 
in the war of the Revolution as the aid-de-camp of Gen. La 
Fayette. After the war he was extensively engaged in com- 
mercial pursuits in New York, London and Paris. Since 
Macomb's purchase fell into his hands, he and his family 
have been largely identified with the landed interests of 
Northern New York. 



I 



JAMES T. WATSON. I 97 

Of these grants, another of the largest and best known 
is Totten and Crossfield's Purchase. This great purchase 
was made before the Revolution, and comprises a large part 
of the mountain and lake belts of the wilderness. Among 
the numerous ones that lie between the borders of Totten 
and Crossfield's Purchase and the settlements, but still 
mostly in the virgin wilderness, are two tracts of land lying 
on its western border, known as Watson's East and West 
Triangles, which were a part of Macomb's Purchase. 

These two large tracts of land lie on the western slope of 
the Level Belt of the Wilderness, in the counties of Lewis 
and Herkimer. The East Triangle lies in the extreme 
northern part of Herkimer county, near the Oswegatchie 
Ponds, and borders on the Totten and Crossfield Purchase. 
It is one of the wildest and most unfrequented regions of 
the whole wilderness. The West Triangle lies in the eastern 
part of Lewis county, on the border of the settlement, and 
westerly of township number four of Brown's Tract. The 
two tracts are not contiguous, but are connected by a nar- 
row tongue of land that extends between them. The west- 
erly corner of the West Triangle has much of it been cleared 
and settled, and lies not far from the Black River. 



H. 

No sadder story is to be found in forest annals than that 
of James Talcott Watson, the owner of these tracts. His 
father, James Watson, who was a rich merchant of New 
York at the time of and after the Revolution, purchased of 
William Constable, the owner of Macomb's Purchase, in the 
year 1796, the tracts above described, containing sixty-one 



198 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

thousand four hundred and thirty-three acres. It was the 
West Triangle which is mostly watered by the Independence 
River and its branches, that his only son, the James T. 
Watson above named, made an attempt to settle. His 
father dying in 1809, left him the sole heir to these large 
tracts of land in the old wilderness. 

Like Gilliland on the Boquet River, like Herreshoff on 
the Moose River, like Arthur Noble on the head waters of 
the East Canada Creek, young Watson attempted to found 
a great landed estate on the River Independence, in what 
is now the town of Watson, where he could live in some- 
thing like the old baronial splendor, surrounded by numer- 
ous dependents, and dispensing in his mansion house a 
generous hospitality. Like his father, in early life, Watson 
was a wealthy merchant of New York, being a member of 
the firm of Thomas L. Smith & Co., East India traders, in 
which capacity he once made a voyage to China. 

He was a man of high culture, of poetic fancy, and of 
wonderful conversational powers. To these were added a 
playful wit, the most engaging manners, and a kind and 
tender heart. But over all this was cast a deep shadow that 
blasted at once his hopes and his life. "The death of a 
Miss Livingston," says Dr. Hough, "with whom he was 
engaged to be married, induced a mental aberration which 
continued through life, being more aggravated at certain 
seasons of the year, while at others it was scarcely percepti- 
ble. In after life, the image of the loved and lost often 
came back to his memory, like the sunbeam from a broken 
mirror, and in his waking reveries he was heard to speak of 
her as present in the spirit, and a confidant of his inmost 
thoughts," Laboring thus under this mild type of insanity, 



JAMES T. WATSON. I 99 

in his social life and business transactions he often evinced 
strange caprices. At one time he planted a large vegetable 
garden at his mansion house, not far from the banks of the 
Independence, so late in the season that no mature crop 
could be expected from it. His remark was "that if the 
seeds sprouted well he should be satisfied, as that would 
prove the capacity of his land." He sometimes gave the 
most brilliant entertainments at his country seat above re- 
ferred to, and was always a most welcome guest in the cul- 
tivated and refined social circles of the neighboring villages 
of the valley of the Black River. 

But the memory of the loved and lost haunted him con- 
tinually like a wild sweet passion, and his life was spent in 
violent fluctuations between the most lively and pleasura- 
ble excitement and the deepest despair. At length, in the 
year 1839, in a fit of the deepest melancholy, in which his 
gentle spirit seemed utterly beyond relief from any human 
sympathy, he ended his own life at the age of fifty years. 
Let us hope that he found his soul's idol on the other side 
of the river he so rashly crossed. His large tracts of land 
are still mostly covered by their original woods. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

LAKE BONAPARTE. 

By sinuous shore the baying hound 
Tells the stag seeks on silver sands 

Diana's mirror ; here is found 

One of Endymion's haunted lands. 

The lilies that on thy glowing breast 

Loll languidly in crowns of gold. 
Were pure Evangels speaking rest 

Unto an Exile s heart of old. 

— Caleb Lyon 0/ Lyonsdale. 



ITS SITUATION. 

Upon the north-western border of the Level Belt of the 
Wilderness in the town of Diana, Lewis county, and near 
the St. Lawrence county line is the beautiful Lake Bona- 
parte. It covers about twelve hundred acres of surface ; 
its shores are rugged and picturesque ; it is studded with 
wild rocky islands, and its waters are as clear and bright as 
those of the Loch Lomond or the Loch Katrine so famous 
in Scottish story. This lake was named in honor of Joseph 
Bonaparte, ex-king of Naples and of Spain, the brother of 
the great Napoleon. 

In the year 1815, Joseph, under the assumed name of 
Count de Survilliers, purchased a large tract of wild land of 
his friend Le Ray de Chaumont, for a summer hunting 
park, lying around and including this lake. The tract so 
purchased contained 150,260 acres. It is said that Napo- 
leon at the time of the purchase intended to accompany 
his brother Joseph in his flight to America, and to settle 
upon these lands. The scheme of the Bonapartes was to 
found large manufacturing establishments in the valley of 



LAKE BONAPARTE. 20I 

the Black River, and thus become England's rival in her 
most important interests. This subject was once discussed 
at a dinner given by M. de Chaumont, at his chateau near 
the Black River, in honor of a son of Marshal Murat, then 
M. de Chaumont's guest. But Napoleon concluded to re- 
main, and the valley of the Black River lost the honor of 
receiving an imperial visitor. 

II. 

COUNT DE CHAUMONT. 

No man in its annals is more intimately associated with 
the settlement and development of Northern New York, 
except perhaps William Constable, than James Donatien 
Le Ray, Comte de Chaumont, of whom Joseph Bonaparte 
made this purchase. Le Ray de Chaumont belonged to the 
old nobility of France. When the war of the American 
Revolution broke out his father espoused the cause of the 
colonists with such ardor that he devoted the most of his . 
large fortune to their interests. It was at the elegant chat- 
eau of the elder Count de Chaumont in his park at Passy 
that Franklin so long resided while he was our commissioner 
at the French Court. 

Soon after the war James D. Le Ray de Chamount came 
to America to settle his father's accounts. While here he 
was induced by his friend, Gouverneur Morris, to purchase 
large tracts of land in Northern New York. M. de Cha- 
mount also bought, with his associate, the Count de la For- 
est, the Consul General of France, a smaller tract in Ot- 
sego county, to which they sent Judge Cooper, the father of 

J. Fennimore Cooper, the novelist, to be their agent. 
26 



202 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

At one time M. de Chamount owned thirty thousand seven 
hundred and fifty-eight acres of land in Franklin county, 
seventy-three thousand nine hundred and forty seven in St. 
Lawrence, one hundred and forty-three thousand five hun- 
dred in Jefferson, and one hundred thousand in Lewis coun- 
ty. About the year 1808 he came with his family to reside 
at his chateau at Le Rayville, near the Black River, some 
ten miles easterly of Watertown. This chateau, which may 
still be seen standing, was for many years the seat of a 
most refined and elegant hospitality. Kings, princes, cour- 
tiers and noblemen were his frequent guests. Thus a ray of 
sunshine from the most polished court in Europe had fallen 
suddenly among the shadowy pines of the old American 
forest. It was while traveling in France in the year 1815, 
that M. de Chamount heard that Joseph Bonaparte had ar- 
rived in his flight at the city of Blois. M. de Chaumont, 
who had known him intimately in his better days hastened 
to pay his respects to the fugitive king. He was invited by 
Joseph to dine with him. While at the table Joseph said 
suddenly to M. de Chaumont : 

'* Well I remember you spoke to me formerly of your 
great possessions in the United States. If you have them 
still, I should like very much to have some in exchange for 
a part of that silver I have there in those wagons, and which 
may be pillaged at any moment. Take four or five hun- 
dred thousand francs and give me the equivalent in land." 

" I can not do so," replied M. de Chaumont. " It is im- 
possible to make a bargain when only one party knows 
what he is about." 

" Oh," said the prince, " I know you well, and I rely more 
on your word than my own judgment." 



LAKE BONAPARTE. 203 

This conversation led to the conditional purchase of a 
large tract of wild land. The tract so purchased lay much 
of it in the town of Diana, and included the lake within its 
boundaries. In December, 1818, a deed of this tract was 
executed to Pierre S. Duponceau, his confidential agent, in 
trust for Joseph. 



III. 

DIANA. 

The name of Diana, the goddess of huntsmen, was con- 
ferred upon the town at Joseph's request. In Roman my- 
thology, the Diana Venatrix, or goddess of the chase, is 
represented in painting and statuary as a huntress, tall and 
nimble, with hair partly tied up and partly flowing, with 
light flowing robe, legs bare to the knees, and feet in bus- 
kins, such as were worn by the huntresses of old. Some- 
times she rode in a chariot drawn by two white stags with 
golden antlers, and sometimes upon a stag cross-legged. 
Her attributes were the spear, the bow, the quiver and ar- 
rows. Her attendants were Dryads, the nymphs of the 
woods and hunting hounds. She had a three-fold divini- 
ty, being styled Diana on earth, Luna, or the moon, in 
heaven, and Hecate, or Proserpine, in hell. She is the 
same as the Artemis of the Greeks, the daughter of Zeus 
and Leto, and twin sister of Apollo. The Arcadian Arte- 
mis was a goddess of the nymphs who hunted on the Tay- 
getan mountains, and was drawn in a chariot by four stags 
with golden antlers. 

The favorite pastime of the ex-king was hunting. With 
poetic fancy he imagined the goddess Diana herself might 



204 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

covet this sylvan retreat in the wilds of the American 
forest as her favorite home, and he so named it in her 
honor. 

IV. 

JOSEPH BONAPARTE. 

In 1828, Joseph Bonaparte, under the assumed name of 
Count de Survilliers, built a hunting lodge on the bank of 
the lake. The same year he made a small clearing and 
built a summer house on the outlet where the village of 
Alpina now stands. He also built a summer house, with 
bullet-proof sleeping rooms, at Natural Bridge on the In- 
dian River, seven miles south of the lake, which is still 
standing. For several summers in succession he visited 
his forest possessions. Joseph was living during this time 
in great splendor at Point Breeze, near Bordentown, New 
Jersey. In going from Bordentown up the banks of the 
Hudson, and through the Mohawk valley, to his summer 
retreat in the forest wilds of the Black River country he 
went in great state, accompanied by a large retinue of 
friends and attendants. His journeys on such occasions 
were not unlike those made by the French kings from 
Fontainebleau to Blois during the last century under the 
old regime. When on his way, he cut a road through 
the forest and often went .in to his lake in his coach 
drawn by six horses, with great pomp and ceremony. 
Dressed in his elegant green velvet hunting suit with gilded 
trappings to match, he seemed indeed a prince among the 
hunters. 

Upon these excursions he was often accompanied by the 



LAKE BONAPARTE. 205 

friends of his better days, who^ like himself, were then in 
exile. Sometimes in going and returning, he would stop 
by the wayside to dine under the shade of the primeval 
pines, and his sumptuous repasts were served on golden 
dishes with regal splendor. 

In his journeys Joseph often stopped at Carthage, on the 
Black River, where a long reach of still water extends up 
the river for forty miles, which is navigable for small steam- 
ers. On this part of the stream Joseph would launch an 
elegant six-oared gondola, such as he had been accus- 
tomed to use on the waters of Italy when he was king of 
Naples. This gondola he transported overland and also 
launched it upon his beautiful lake of the wilderness, where, 
with liveried gondoliers and gay trappings it floated grace- 
fully upon its waters. 

Joseph was the favorite brother of Napoleon, and re- 
sembled him in person more than the others. By his 
courtly but pleasing manners he won the esteem and re- 
spect of all the neighboring hunters and settlers, and be- 
came endeared to many of them by his uniform kindness 
and timely generosity. In 1835 he sold his wild lands to 
John La Farge, the rich merchant of New York. As the 
forest home of exiled royalty in the New World a romantic 
interest now attaches to this enchanting lake. 

" Brother of him whose charmed sword 

Clove or created kingdoms fair, 

Whose faith in him was as tire word 

Writ in tlie Memlook's scimeter. 

Here he forgot La Granja's glades, 

Escurial's dark and gloomy dome, 
And sweet Sorrento's deathless shades, 

In his far-off secluded home." 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE LEGEND OF THE DIAMOND ROCK. 

" He that sounds them has pierced the heart's hollows, 
The place where tears are and sleep, 
For the foam flakes that dance in life s shallows 
Are wrung from life's deep." 

— Fugitive Poem. 

I. 

The village of Lansingburgh is pleasantly situated upon 
the east bank of the Hudson directly opposite the point 
where the Mohawk, coming in from the westward and strik- 
ing the valley of the Hudson, separates into three or four 
" sprouts," and soon mingling its troubled waters with the 
more placid tide of the larger river, rests from its labors 

The valley of the Hudson at this point, along its easterly 
bank, is not more than half a mile in width, and terminates 
in a range of hills running parallel with the river, which 
rise somewhat abruptly to the height of two or three hun- 
dred feet. Between this range of high hills and the river 
our village nestles in a complete forest of shade trees. 
Troy, its younger sister, but three miles below it, swelling 
into the pomp and pride of a city, long since absorbed the 
business growth of our village, and left it a retreat for quiet 
homes. The city has drawn away from the village its 
counting-houses, its warehouses, — in a word its more sordid 
interests, but has left to the village its schools, its churches, 
its firesides, around which cluster, after all, life's dearest 
hopes and most enduring joys. 



LEGEND OF THE DIAMOND ROCK. 207 



II. 

High up on the brow of the hill overlooking the village, 
a huge mass of calciferous sand rock of the Quebec group 
crops out near the bordering strata of Hudson River slate 
and shale, and terminates in a peak rising some sixty feet 
above the surrounding surface, with jagged, sloping sides, 
extending over an area of half an acre or more of ground. 
This rock, throughout its whole structure, is filled with 
beautiful shining quartzose crystals, and its surface glitters 
in the sunlight as if it were covered all over with sparkJing 
gems. Hence it is known far and near as the Diamond 
Rock. 

This rock can be seen from every part of the village, 
rising up against the eastern sky like a miniature mountain 
peak, and is often pointed out by the villagers to the tourist 
and stranger as an object of interest well worthy of a visit. 
From its summit can be seen the whole upper valley of the 
Hudson, from the Catskills on the south to the Adirondacks 
on the north — a sweep of view extending more than a hun- 
dred miles along the river. No fairer scene anywhere on 
earth greets the human vision. 

While this valley was under the dominion of the red 
man, so prominent a natural object as this rock was, of 
course, regarded as a land-mark. Situated as it was, over- 
looking the confluence of two important rivers, which then, 
as well as now, marked out the great highways of travel 
westward to the great lakes, and northward to the great 
river leading from them to the ocean, this rock was a beacon 
to the wanderer. From its top could be seen far off in the 



2o8 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

distance the camp-fire of the northern invader, as well as 
the welcome signal of the western ally coming to the res- 
cue. 

III. 

In the summer of 1858, while spending a few weeks in 
the great northern wilderness of New York, in company 
with some friends,* I heard from the lips of an old Indian, 
a legend of this Diamond Rock. We were encamped upon 
a little island on the northern shore of the Raquette Lake, 
opposite the mouth of the Marian River. From this point 
it was our practice to make excursions to the different 
points of interest around the lake. Upon a sultry day in 
August we all started upon a trip to the summit of the Blue 
Mountain, which lies twenty miles to the eastward, and can 
be seen from all parts of the lake, looming grandly up 
against the sky. 

Our course was up the Marian River, and through the 
Eckford chain of lakes, the last one of which, its waters 
clear as crystal, sleeps at the mountain's base. We expected 
to be absent from our camp two or three days, so we pro- 
ceeded leisurely upon our journey. In the skiff with my- 
self were two others of the party, and our little craft, for 
some reason or other, was far in advance of all the rest. 
Toward night-fall we entered a small lake, and while pad- 

* Prof. Samuel W. Johnson, of New Haven, Rev. William H. Lock- 
wood of Eau Claire, Wis., Leonard C. Davenport and W. Hudson 
Stephens of Lowville, were of this party, with Amos Spofford and Al. 
Higby as guides. While at the Raquette we encamped on Osprey Is- 
land, since then the camping ground of Rev. Mr. Murray, of Adiron- 
dack fame. While we were there. Prof. Agassiz, Prof. Benedict, Mr. 
Longfellow, and Mr. Thoreau were occupying the " Philosopher's 
Camp," on the Saranac. 



LEGEND OF THE DIAMOND ROCK. 2O9 

dling slowly along so that the others might the more readily 
overtake us, we saw a deer at the distance of a mile ahead 
of us, standing in the edge of the water, quietly feeding 
among the lily-pads. Bright visions of venison steaks steam- 
ing hot from the embers of our camp-fire for supper and 
breakfast instantly arose before us, and we at once deter- 
mined to secure the game if it were possible, and thus be 
able to realize our ideal in that particular. 

My companions soon landed me upon the shore, which 
was covered with a dense mass of evergreens reaching al- 
most down to the water's edge. With rifle in hand I walked 
noiselessly along the bank to the point directly opposite the 
place where we had seen the deer standing. Carefully 
separating the overhanging boughs so as to obtain a view of 
the lake, much to my disappointment I discovered that the 
deer was no longer visible. 

Those visions of venison steaks began to appear wonder- 
fully like dissolving views. Determined, however, to investi- 
gate the matter further, I stepped down the bank into the 
lake, and waded out a little distance in the shallow water. 
Turning toward the shore, I saw the deer skulking just 
above the water's edge, partially hidden by the foliage, not 
ten rods distant from where I stood. In another instant 
the sharp crack of my rifle reverberated round the shores 
of the peaceful lake, and a splendid doe lay sprawling 
before me upon the bright sandy beach. As I approached 
the dying deer, she raised her head with a piteous, pleading 
look, that stung me with remorse for the ruin I had wrought. 

The dying deer sheds tears. Soon those pleading eyes 
began to fill with tears, and the bright drops to trickle down 



27 



2IO NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

upon the sand. They seemed to me Hke human eyes, like 
those deep spiritual eyes sometimes seen in woman that 
haunt our dreams forever after. 

IV. 

While I stood half entranced by those tearful eyes, I was 
startled from my reverie by a slight movement of the bushes 
on the bank. In a moment they parted, and an aged In- 
dian emerged from the forest. Giving me a grunt of recog- 
nition, he stopped short, and stood for a moment gazing at 
the dying deer. Then shrugging his shoulders, he broke 
the silence, saying in broken English: "White man, you 
good shot. Deer very much plenty round here. Me In- 
dian kill two yesterday. Deer always cry so like squaw 
when me kiirum."* 

As the tears were falling fast upon the beach, the old 
Indian stooped down and gathered a handful of the coarse 
sand wet with their flow. Pointing out to me some crystals 
that were brightened by the moisture of the tears, he again 
spoke : 

" Pale face, look here. See how tears make pretty stones 

* Hark ! the hunter's piercing cry ! 
See the shafts unerring fly ! 
Ah ! the dappled fool is stricken — 
See him tremble — see him sicken. 
All his worldly comrades flying, 
See him bleeding, panting, dying ; 
From his eye-lids wan and hollow, 
How the big tears follow — follow 

Down his face in piteous chase : 
How they follow — follow, follow 

Without stop, drop by drop. 
How they follow drop by drop. 

Gen. John Burgoyne. 



LEGEND OF THE DIAMOND ROCK. 211 

to shine very much. White man, come to Indian's wigwam 
to-night. Me tell white man good story." 

Our whole party soon came up to where we stood, and as 
it was already time to look out for a camping ground for 
the night, we concluded to accept the Indian's kindly prof- 
fered hospitality. 

He said his wigwam was half a mile further up the lake, 
and we took our deer into the skiff, and proceeded thither. 
As we paddled quietly along, the sun was setting behind us. 
We saw before us the departing sunlight, followed by the 
evening shadows, crawl gradually up the mountain side, and 
disappear on its summit. Then the soft blue haze that all 
day long had lingered round the mountain, soon assumed 
purple and golden hues, until the whole atmosphere in 
which we moved seemed saturated with a thousand nameless 
tints of wondrous beauty. Not a breath of wind ruffled 
the surface of the lake. All the glowing splendors of the 
firmament above the waters were reflected in the firmament 
beneath the waters. It seemed as if we had at last found 
the charmed spot where the rainbow touches the earth. But 
the shadows of evening soon obscured the radiant picture. 

In a short time we reached the Indian's shanty. It was 
situated at the head of a small bay or cove that indented 
the shore, and in the valley of a little brook that there 
runs into the lake. It was a rude, frail structure, made after 
the fashion of the wilderness. There were two upright 
posts, some six feet in height and ten apart, with crotches 
at the top, across which a pole was laid. From this pole 
others extended, upon one side only, in a slanting direction 
to the ground, some eight feet distant. This frame-work 
was covered with large pieces of spruce bark, peeled from 



212 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

some neighboring trees, upon the slanting roof and ends 
only, leaving the front side open to the weather. The earth 
under the shanty was thickly strewn with freshly-cut hem- 
lock boughs to the depth of a foot or more. These fragrant 
boughs, with a couple of bear-skins for a covering, served 
for a bed. 

Directly in front of the shanty a cheerful fire was burning 
when we arrived. Over the fire a steaming pot was hang- 
ing, sustained by a small pole resting upon two upright 
crotched sticks. The Indian was cooking a venison stew 
for his supper, and while thus engaged had heard the report 
of my rifle. 

With our hatchets we soon added to his scanty supply of 
wood sufficient for the night, and, dressing the deer, soon 
had our own savory steaks smoking over the bright coals of 
the fire. One of our party had shot a pair of young black 
ducks, and these, whizzing away in a frying-pan, promised 
no mean addition to our fare. To these we added some 
brook trout, cooked in true backwoods style — a fish that is 
so exquisitely delicate, that, like the ripe strawberry, it will 
bear neither keeping nor transportation, but, to be enjoyed 
in its perfection, must be cooked and eaten when but just 
dripping from its native element. The old Indian's mess 
of pottage and some potatoes roasted in the ashes, com- 
pleted our sumptuous repast. 

After supper we piled brush and huge logs upon the fire, 
and, lighting our pipes, reclined upon the fragrant bed of 
boughs to rest our limbs, weary with the days' tramp and 
excitement. 

The flames lit up the forest around us, the nearer trees 
standing out in bright relief against the somber shadows 



LEGEND OF THE DIAMOND ROCK. 213 

beyond. Above the trees, the stars looked down from out 
their awful depths. The night winds sighing through the 
pines filled the air with gentle murmurs, the brook answer- 
ing with its prattle, gurgling over its stony bed. We were 
within the great heart of Nature. Her pulses were throb- 
bing all around us. We could hear the perpetual hum of 
her myriad voices. We could feel the magnetism of her 
all-pervading presence. 

V. 

Thus engaged, and with such surroundings, we were in 
just the mood to hear and enjoy the old Indian's tale. I 
will not trouble the reader with his broken English, but 
give the substance of it in my own words. Taking three 
or four strong whiffs from his pipe, he began : 

You must know that I belong to the Mohawks, one of 
the Five Nations. Our tribe, in ancient days, built its 
lodges along the valley of the Mohawk, and upon both 
sides of the Hudson, near the junction of the two rivers. 
It is a tradition of our fathers that the Five Nations first 
came out of the ground from their subterranean home at 
some place south-easterly of the Oswego River, in the 
Lesser Wilderness, and from thence spread out into the 
different parts of the country they afterward inhabited. 
The Five Nations called themse\v>is Ho-^/t'-^w-sau-nee, which 
means, in the Indian tongue, "The People of the Long 
House." The Mohawks guarded the eastern door of the 
long house, and the Senecas the western door; while the 
Oneidas, Onondagas and Cayugas took care of the interior, 
the great central council fire being always kept brightly 
burning in the country of the Onondagas. 



2 14 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

Before the union of the nations was accomplished by the 
exertions of the great sachem Hi-a-wat-ha, the Mohawks 
wandered away up the Hudson into the valley of the St. 
Lawrence, and built their lodges and planted their corn- 
fields, near where Montreal now stands. To the north and 
west of them dwelt a powerful nation called by our people 
Adirondacks, and afterward named by the French Algon- 
quins. The Adirondacks soon became jealous of our 
growing strength, and seeking a pretence for war, drove our 
people back again to the valley of the Mohawk. Our tribe 
not long after united their fortunes with their sister tribes, 
and became a part of the mighty people called by the Eng- 
lish the Five Nations, by the French the Iroquois, and by 
themselves the Ho-de-7io-sau-nee. 

While our people were in the land of the Adirondacks 
they were governed by an old sachem named Ho-ha-do-ra. 
His wife, Mo-ne-ta, was young, and one of the most beauti- 
ful women of her tribe. She bore him two sons, whom he 
called Ta-en-da-ra and 0-nos-qua. 

It so happened that in an attack upon their village, be- 
fore our people were overpowered and driven from the St. 
Lawrence, a band of Adirondack warriors took 0-nos-qua, 
the sachem's youngest son, captive and hurried him off into 
their own country, where he was saved from torture by be- 
ing adopted by an Adirondack woman who had lost her own 
son upon the war-path. Ho-ha-do-ra made many attempts 
to recapture 0-nos-qua, but they all proved unavailing. 

With a heavy heart the old sachem, with his wife and re- 
maining son, led his people back to their former home upon 
the Mohawk and Hudson, leaving his darling boy in hope- 
less captivity in the land of his enemies. The old sachem 



LEGEND OF THE DIAMOND ROCK. 21 5 

soon sank beneath the heavy blow, and when near his end, 
called his son Ta-en-da-ra to his side and said : 

" Ta-en-da-ra, my son, your father will soon go to the 
happy hunting grounds, while your brother 0-nos-qua is 
still a slave in the land of the Adirondacks. Swear by the 
Great Spirit that 0-nos-qua's bones shall rest by the side of 
Ho-ha-do-ra's, Mo-ne-ta's and Ta-en-da-ra's on the banks 
of the Mohawk." 

" I swear !" said Ta-en-da-ra, " but who will take care of 
Mo-ne-ta, my mother, while I am gone for my brother ?" 

" My people shall do it," replied the dying sachem, " Mo- 
ne-ta shall be their queen until her sons come back." 

In a little while the old sachem died, and Mo-ne-ta, after 
the custom of her people, sat up four nights by a fire lighted 
upon the river bank to guide his soul into the spirit world. 
As she sat and mourned by the fire through the dismal 
nights, she sang a low, sweet dirge for the dead, and the 
soft cadences of her melodious voice rose and fell through 
the recesses of the tangled forest like the wail of some wild 
bird mourning for its lost mate. 

After the days of her mourning were ended she called 
her son to her. "Ta-en-da-ra," she said, "your father's 
bones cannot rest alone. His soul cannot be happy while 
0-nos-qua is a slave. Go and find your brother in the 
land of the Adirondacks. Mo-ne-ta will kindle a fire upon 
the beacon rock and watch until her sons come to her. 
When you are coming back with your brother from toward 
the setting sun, or from under the moveless star, you will 
see the light of my beacon fire from afar, and will know 
that Mo-ne-ta is still waiting for her children. Go." 

Ta-en-da-ra then went to a lonely spot in the forest and 



2l6 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

fasted seven days to invoke his guardian spirit. He then 
painted his face, struck his tomahawk into the war-post, 
and put on his pkunes for the war-path. With his quiver 
full of arrows and his trusty bow, he set out in his bark 
canoe up the Hudson. When he came to the end of his 
first day's journey, he looked back toward his home and 
saw the faint glimmer of Mo-ne-ta's beacon light appearing 
like a rising star upon the horizon. 

It was long, weary years before he saw it again. He 
went away a youthful, valiant brave. He came back after 
many sufferings had bowed his frame, an old man, tottering 
beneath the weight of his brother's bones, which he bore 
with him in solemn triumph, as his life's great trophy. 

Of his journeys, of his bold exploits, of his captivity, of 
his adoption by the Adirondacks, his meeting with his long 
lost brother, his brother's death, of his escape at last and 
his journey home from the St. Lawrence, I shall not now 
speak. My story is of Mo-ne-ta. 

The clan to which Mo-ne-ta belonged had its lodges on 
the plain which lies on the east bank of the Hudson, di- 
rectly opposite the mouths of the Mohawk. In the rear of 
the plain was a tangled swamp. Beyond the swamp was a 
high hill, upon the top of which was the beacon rock, over- 
looking a vast country up and down the river. From the 
wigwams near the river a trail led through the swamp and 
up the hill to the beacon rock. 

When the shades of night were falling, upon the day of 
Ta-en-da-ra's departure, Mo-ne-ta wended her way through 
the swamp and up the hill to the beacon rock. She gathered 
some sticks, and rubbing two dry ones together, kindled a 
fire upon the highest point of the rock and sat down beside 



I 



LEGEND OF THE DIAMOND ROCK. 21 7 

it. She was then just in the first sweet prime of woman- 
hood, and scarcely forty summers had passed over her 
faultless form and features. Her raven tresses hung loosely 
down her shoulders and rested on the rock around her. 
Thus she sat and mourned. Her heart was far away in the 
wilderness with her wandering son and his captive brother, 
— in the great wilderness that lies beneath the moveless 
star. 

Moon after moon waxed and waned, and still they came 
not. Then summer after summer tipped the fir trees with 
fresh green, and called back the birds, but Ta-en-da-ra and 
0-nos-qua, where were they ? Still she lighted the fire 
upon the beacon rock, and sat and mourned. Her people 
did not forget the words of their dying chief. They filled 
her wigwam with venison and corn. 

As the seasons glided by she grew old, and was no longer 
able to find sticks sufficient for her beacon fire, and the 
young women of her clan gathered them for her, and kept 
her signal fire brightly burning. 

It is said that the Indian never weeps. This is true of 
him while upon the war-path — while enduring torture and 
while in the presence of the stranger. But by the side of 
his dying kindred and his own fire, his tears come out of 
their pent-up fountains like those of other men. 

Each night, just before Mo-ne-ta left the rock to return 

to sleep in her wigwam, she would repeat her low sweet 

funeral dirge, and then tears would come to her relief, and 

save her heart from breaking. Thus tears, blessed tears, 

dropped upon the beacon rock night after night for year 

after year. At length Mo-ne-ta's mind began to wander — 

began to give way beneath the constant strain. Her people 
28 



2l8 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

then had to lead her up to her place upon the rock and 
light her fire for her. Yet each night the dirge was sung 
and the rock watered with her tears. Thus passed five 
hundred moons and Ta-en-da-ra had not come. 

At last, upon a sultry evening of the green corn moon, 
Mo-ne-ta had been led to the rock and her fire lighted. 
There she sat just as she did forty years before, but now 
she was old and gray, and crazed with ceaseless watching. 

As the sun went down, long banks of heavy clouds in 
the south-west betokened a coming storm. As the evening 
advanced, the sky became overcast, the wind came up in 
sudden gusts, and the lightning began to play vividly with 
that incessant glare that sometimes accompanies such storms 
in the valley of the Hudson. 

From the lodges near the river, the beacon light could be 
seen faintly glowing in the darkness between the flashes. 
When the flashes came, the beacon rock, with Mo-ne-ta 
sitting on its summit, stood out in. sharp relief against the 
dark clouds beyond. 

Moved by some strange impulse, Mo-ne-ta struck up an 
Indian song, wild and sweet, that floated out upon the 
troubled elements, and while the wind would lull, filled the 
valley with its strange melodies. Had the wild tokens of 
the coming tempest stirred up the latent fires in Mo-ne-ta's 
bosom and brought back her wandering reason ? Or had 
some spirit-bird fanned her face with its wings and warned 
the mother's heart of the coming of her returning son ? It 
was the spirit-bird. 

Weary and worn with travel, Ta-en-da-ra was even then 
going up the trail to the beacon rock. He catches the wild 
snatches of his mother's song, and in an instant the vigor 



LEGEND OF THE DIAMOND ROCK. 219 

of youth returns to his limbs. In a moment more he is 
standing by her side. A wild shriek of tumultous joy 
from Mo-ne-ta rings through the valley high above the 
voices of the storm, and awakens the very echoes of the 
forest. 

The people rushed out from their wigwams. In the bright 
glare of the lightning they beheld in tableau vivant upon 
the beacon rock, Ta-en-da-ra standing upon its summit, 
with Mo-ne-ta bowing her head upon his bosom — mother 
and son in loving embrace. But such unutterable rapture 
is not for mortals. In an instant more a bolt came down 
from heaven jarring the earth with its violence, and shak- 
ing the beacon rock to its very foundations. The people, 
trembling, saw in the lightning the manifest presence of 
the Great Spirit. They heard His terrible voice in the 
thunder, and struck with unutterable awe they shrank back 
to their wigwams. 

In the morning the people gathered again around the 
beacon rock. Its surface was riven and shattered by the 
bolt. 0-nos-qua's scattered bones were there, but no trace 
of Mo-ne-ta nor of Ta-en-da-ra was to be seen. Then it 
was that the people believed that that mother and her son 
had so consecrated their souls by a life-long sacrifice upon 
the altar of true affection that in the moment of their su- 
preme felicity they had become too pure for earth and were 
absorbed — translated into the presence of the Great Spirit 
by the power of His lightnings, which they thought were 
but sparks struck with awful thunderings from the eternal 
fire of His glory. And while they stood gazing upon this 
strange scene in awe and wonder, the sun came up over the 
eastern hills and shed his beams upon it, when lo ! they for 



220 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

the first time saw that the rock was glittering all over with 
sparkling gems. 

"See, see ! " they cried with one accord, "See Mo-ne-ta's 
tears," " Mo-ne-ta's tears." 

So free from earthly dross had been that mother's tears 
shed for her children, that the Great Spirit, by the refining 
fire of His glory, had changed them into crystals — into 
glittering immortelles such as cover forever the shining 
trees in the hunting grounds of the blessed, and to this day 
those crystalized tears are still to be seen imbedded in the 
solid rock, there to remain while the earth shall last as 
bright mementoes of a mother's changeless love. 

When the pale-face came across the big water and saw 
them he exclaimed, "See! see! a diamond rock! a diamond 
rock!" 

The tears of the dying deer falling upon the bright sands 
of the beach had suggested the old Indian's story. 



. CHAPTER XXVIII. 

V, 

V THE TWO WATER WHEELS. 

V, 

J " Be good, my friend, and let who will be clever; 

I Do noble things, not dream them all day long ; 

^ So making life, death, and that vast forever, 

V One grand, sweet song." 

: I. 

THE DREAMER. 

" Thou hast me a dreamer styled, 
I have gazed on thy wakefulness and smiled." 

Twenty years ago this morning, that is to say, on the 23d 
day of September, 18 — , I left the old homestead farm and 
went to the village of Lowville, to enter upon the untried 
field of another vocation. 

And now it seems to me but yesterday since I arose early 
on that bright autumn morning twenty years ago, took a 
last look at the sheep and lambs, the pigs and chickens, 
and saw the cows driven away to the river pasture. It 
seems but yesterday since I bade the oxen and horses, my 
fellow-workers in many a hard day's toil, good-bye, and laid 
away the pitchfork and plough to take them up no more. 

Since then I have often said, and now I say, Alas the day! 
There is a world of drudgery upon the farm, but there is 
nowhere else such sweet rest. 

These personal reminiscences may not interest the reader, 
but at the thought of those old familiar fields on this, to 
me, an anniversary morning, they rush into consciousness 
all unbidden from the chambers of memory, and my pen 
records them against the promptings of my better judgment. 



2 22 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

The village of Lowville is situated upon a little stream 
at the foot of the terraced hills which skirt the western 
limits of the valley of the Black River in Northern New 
York. The village is surrounded on every side save that 
which faces the river with high hills, and nestles in groves 
of sugar maples and stately elms, which serve, when clothed 
with the exuberance of June, or decked in the more bril- 
liant hues of October, to render it one of the earth's fairest 
bowers of beauty. In this quiet, unpretending, lovely vil- 
lage, thus situated about midway between the rush of traffic 
and travel that surges along the valley of the Mohawk on 
the one hand, and the St. Lawrence upon the other, yet far 
removed from the influence of either, I took up my abode. 

But twenty years have wrought great changes in the vil- 
lage of Lowville. Its elms have grown taller and its maples 
cast a wider breadth of shade. Stately blocks of stores and 
elegant mansions now adorn its streets, taking the places of 
the more humble structures of earlier days. 

But more than this. The telegraph and railroad have 
recently invaded the secluded valley of the Black River, 
bringing in their train the spirit of modern progress. The 
quiet village of twenty years ago has become a busy mart 
of trade, and now rivals in importance its more favored 
sisters upon the Mohawk and the St. Lawrence. 

The little stream above mentioned is formed by the junc- 
tion of three branches near the village. These three 
branches come tumbling down the terraced slope of the 
plateau of the Lesser Wilderness from the westward in a 
series of beautiful rapids and cascades, and have worn deep 
gorges for their beds through the soft limestone rock that 
forms the foundation of the lower terraces of the hills. 



THE TWO WATER WHEELS. 223 

One day shortly after my arrival in the village, and while 
the Indian summer was pouring its glories over the land, 
I wandered up one of these gorges to the foot of a splendid 
cascade, there known as the Silvermine Falls, and sat down 
upon a rock under the shadow of an elm, to enjoy the scene 
before me. 

The water came rushing over the jagged limestone ledge 
in a beautiful shower of spray and foam. It had nothing 
to do there but to sputter and foam, and laugh and dance 
along, as wild and free as any mountain stream is wont to 
be before the hand of man turns it into the channels of 
labor. 

While I sat thus engaged, an old man came walking slow- 
ly up the gorge, aiding his uncertain steps with a huge 
hickory cane. He was tall, with stooping shoulders. His 
nose and his cheek-bones were prominent ; his forehead 
protruding, his chin somewhat receding; his hair was long 
and scanty and as white as the driven snow. His garments 
were tattered and torn, and had been often patched with 
cloth of different colors. 

As he came along he was muttering incoherently to him- 
self, and was so intent upon his thoughts that he did not see 
me as he passed the spot where I sat. He proceeded a few 
paces further and sat down upon a log of drift-wood. Re- 
moving his hat, which had long before seen better days, he 
wiped the beaded drops of sweat from his brow, and then 
gazed at the waterfall. 

As the old man sat thus, with his eyes intently fixed upon 
the foaming waters, he raised his voice above his mutterings 
into a distinct soliloquy. 

"They say it can't be done," said he, "but I say it can. 



224 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

I say there is water enough running over these falls to turn 
an overshot wheel of sixty feet in diameter. I say it will 
run the machinery for the whole village. I will build it 
some day, too, and it will be my water wheel. They say I 
never can, but I will. Eunice, too, says I'll never do it, but 
I shall. She has been a good wife to me. She never com- 
plains much, but I do think she ought to have more faith 
in my water wheel. She says I'm always going to do it, 
but never get about it. She says she hates people that are 
always going to do something but never do it. She thinks 
it is about time, too, that she should have the new silk dress 
I promised her better than twenty years ago, when she 
signed the mortgage on the old farm. But I can't get it 
for her till my water wheel is done. Little Alice — Oh! how 
I wish she had lived to see my water wheel. There ! there ! 
see, see, Alice ! It is going now. See how it works ! See 
how the water drips and dashes about it ! There is power 
in it ! / tell you there is power in it !" 

As the old man began to see the vision of the wheel be- 
fore him, seeming to him so like something real, he arose 
from his seat, extended his arms convulsively upward, and 
raised his voice into a shrill tenor. Then as the vision van- 
ished and the blank reality came back, he sank down ex- 
hausted to the earth. 

I hurried to his side, and dipping some of the cool water 
of the creek in the hollow of my hand, dashed it into his 
face. As he partially recovered he began to give utterance 
to the struggling fancies of his. returning consciousness. 

"I thought," said he, "I was showing little Alice my 
water wheel. Poor thing, she died years and years ago, 



THE TWO WATER WHEELS. 225 

but it seemed to me that I had her in my arms again, and 
that the wheel was going, and she was looking at it." 

Opening his eyes and seeing a stranger thus bending over 
him, he started at once to liis feet with a look of mingled 
surprise and alarm. While I was endeavoring to make some 
sort of apology for my involuntary intrusion, he turned upon 
his heel, and without saying another word, slowly retraced 
his steps down the gorge. In a few moments he passed 
around a bend of the stream out of my sight. 

After the old man had gone, the laughing waters again 
entranced me with their pearly splendor. The sun sank 
slowly down behind the western hills, shedding his blood- 
red effulgence over the smoky drapery of the landscape, 
which was now putting on its garb of sadness — its robes of 
mourning for the dead and dying beauties of the summer. 

But sadder than all things else was the heart of that old 
man, now mourning over his buried hopes. 

The next morning I learned upon inquiry that the old 
man's name was Joseph Dunklee. He was living in a lone- 
ly house in the upper part of the village, his aged wife 
sharing his extreme poverty. They had seen better days. 
His father had been a thrifty and prosperous miller in a 
([uiet New England village. In due time, being an only 
child, Joseph inherited his father's property, and was looked 
upon as one of the most promising young men of the 
village. His wife was then the comely daughter of a neigh- 
boring farmer, who sometimes went with her father to the 
mill in the bright summer mornings. Joseph, the miller's 
son was lithe and tall, with ruddy cheeks and dark brown 
hair, with a merry twinkle in his eye, with a pleasant word 

and a winning smile that stole her heart. They were soon 
29 



2 26 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

married and nicely settled in a pleasant home. In a year 
or two a smiling cherub winged its way into their house- 
hold — their little Alice. Then the farmer died, and the 
broad acres of the farm were added to the mill lot. Thus 
things went on with the young miller Joseph Dnnklee, and 
his happy wife. This was the golden glow of their life's 
morning. We shall see how deep were the shadows of its 
evening. 

It is the old story of the unsuccessful. Young Dunklee 
had inherited his father's property, but not his thrift. His 
father would go into the mill in the morning, satisfied with 
the machinery as ,the millwright had left it, so long as it ran 
smoothly, and was anxious only to leave it at night with a 
heavier stock of grain in his toll bin. 

The young man had that genius for mechanics which 
places its possessor in the ranks of the inventors. He 
could comprehend at a glance all the intricacies of the 
most complicated machinery, and new combinations of mo- 
tive power were constantly arising in his mind all unbidden, 
seeking application to the various wants of human industry. 
In short, he soon began to spend more time in experiment- 
ing with the running gear of his mill than in grinding corn, 
and the swelling fatness of his father's toll bin dwindled 
gradually away. Joseph at length conceived the idea of 
building an immense water wheel that would furnish not 
only power for his own mill, but sufficient also for all the 
mills and factories in the village. The idea of such a wheel 
became indelibly pictured upon his brain. It haunted him 
day and night. He soon began to see it as distinctly in his 
waking as in his sleeping dreams, perpetually towering up 
before him in all its stately proportions. He could no 



THE TWO WATER WHEELS. 227 

longer resist the temptation to attempt its construction. To 
raise the necessary funds the mill lot and farm were mort- 
gaged. The services of all the wheelwrights and carpenters 
for miles and miles around were put in requisition from the 
opening of spring until the close of an August day, when 
the different parts were pronounced complete, and were ly- 
ing scattered along the bank of the mill-stream, awaiting 
the morrow for the commencement of the raising. A sud- 
den tempest came up before midnight, and the rain fell in 
sheets till morning. At early dawn the stream was higher 
than it had ever been known to rise before, and the timbers 
of the unfinished water wheel were all floating down the 
wide waste of angry waters into the sea. 

Dunklee was ruined. 

His neighbors had all laughed at him, had called him an 
enthusiast — a dreamer, and had sometimes indulged in still 
harsher epithets. It now seemed as if the hand of Provi- 
dence even was against him, and had thwarted his endea- 
vors. 

The farm and the mill lot were soon to be sold by the 
sheriff", and Dunklee, his wife, and little Alice were to be 
sent forth wanderers from their once happy home. But 
not together. Before the day of sale came little Alice took 
sick and died. The cherub, it seemed, was but a loan for 
their life's fair morning. They must return it before the 
evening shadows came on. 

Then Joseph Dunklee and his wife Eunice left behind 
them the old homestead, his mill and her farm, the peace- 
ful New England village and the grave of little Alice, to 
bend their steps westward in search of better fortunes. 

Of all his former possessions he took nothing with him 



2 28 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

save the haunting vision of the water wheel. But the 
fickle goddess Fortune forever eluded his grasp. By the 
labor of his hands he had been able to acquire a scanty 
subsistence for himself and wife until old age and failing 
strength had brought them to extreme poverty. Such was 
their condition when first I saw him. 

A short time after the occurrence at the cascade, I was 
attracted one afternoon by some unusual noise in the 
street. Looking out of the window, I saw the old man 
walking along as fast as his feeble legs could carry him. 
He was followed by a troop of rude boys, who were all 
screaming after him at the top of their voices, " Water 
wheel! water wheel! water wheel !" Occasionally he would 
turn and address the boys a few words of angry expostula- 
tion, but they continued to tease him until some kind neigh- 
bor took pity upon the poor old man, and drove them away. 

A few days after this, a man came into the village from 
the country, who had heard of Dunklee's water wheel. 
Supposing there was such a thing in existence, the man in- 
quired of some one concerning its locality. The person 
inquired of referred him to Dunklee himself, who, it so 
happened, was passing near them at the moment. The 
stranger accosted the old man. "Mr. Dunklee," said he, 
"I have often heard of your water wheel, but never saw it. 

Will you tell me where " ''''Heigh!'" yelled the old man, 

interrupting him, as soon as he began to comprehend the 
subject of the inquiry. "I say," continued the stranger, 
somewhat abashed by the old man's warmth of manner, but 
raising his voice so that he could be plainly heard by him, 
"I say," continued he, "that I never saw your water 
wheel " 



\ 



\ 



THE TWO WATER WHEELS. 2 29 

But he got no further. It was too much for the old man. 
His cane went down upon the unsuspecting stranger's head 
with a crash that sent him reeling to the earth. 

The next morning the old man was taken before the vil- 
lage Justice, Esquire Knox, upon a charge of assault and 
battery. He plead the story of his wrongs in extenuation 
of his offense. The kind-hearted Justice imposed a light 
fine upon him, and paid it himself, rather than to send the 
poor old man to jail. 

The stranger from that time forward ceased to indulge 
his curiosity in the direction of large water wheels. 

During all these years of hopeless poverty, Eunice 
Dunklee lived with her husband without upbraiding him. 
It seemed to her to be her destined lot in life, so ordered for 
some wise purpose, and she accepted it with uncomplaining 
resignation. She had hoped to lean upon him and find 
support as the vine does upon the oak. But he, too, was 
but a vine — to her a vine of bitter-sweet. Kind hands at 
last smoothed her dying pillow, and carried her to the 
grave. 

Then there was but one door left open for the old man — 
the door held open by public charity — the Poor House door. 
Through this door he entered, his pride humbled by nec- 
essity. At last they laid him in the village burying ground 
by her side, and but for this idle tale of mine, Dunklee and 
the life-long vision that haunted him would soon have 
passed from the memory of men. 



230 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

II. 

THE WORKER. 

" Say ! Brothers of the dusky brow, 
What forge ye now ? " 

The city of Troy adorns the valley of the Hudson. Its 
builders have wedged it in between the river and a range 
of high hills to the eastward. Upon the south the hills 
crowd down to the river's bank and bar the city's further 
progress. Toward the north the valley widens and the city 
breathes more freely as it stretches with rapid strides up 
the stream. Tall masted vessels and splendid steamers 
following the swell of the tidal wave until it breaks upon 
our city's docks a hundred and fifty miles from the sea, fill 
its warehouses with the riches of the world's commerce. 
From our city's center radiate toward the north, the south, 
the east and the west, long lines of railways over which rush 
a hundred trains of cars each day. Its traffic and trade ex- 
tend to every country, and the names of its merchants and 
manufacturers are known in all lands. 

In the spring of 18 — I left the quiet of the village for 
the hurry and bustle of the city. The excitement of the 
city's more intense life intoxicates and bewilders. We 
forget the pure air and blessed sunshine of the country in 
the whirl of business and pleasure that is forever surging 
through the streets of the city. But through it all there 
will sometimes come unbidden the old love for green fields 
and babbling brooks — for flowers and trees and growing 
things. 

As the soldier in the fight looks through the smoke of the 
battle-field upon the green hills far away with longing eyes, 



THE TWO WATER WHEELS. 23 I 

and hopes to escape the dreadful dangers which surround 
him, that he may again roam over them in quietness and 
peace, — so the dweller in the city looks through the ceaseless 
toil, the turmoil and strife of his life's battle, into the distant 
future upon some enchanting spot, some paradise of earth, 
where he may find peace at last. But oftener than other- 
wise he finds no rest until his body lies in some Oakwood, 
Greenwood or Mount Auburn, surrounded at last in death 
by Nature's charms, the pleasures to be derived from which 
he denied himself while living. 

There is a world of witchery about a city life, but there 
is nowhere else such terrible unrest. 

But what has all this to do with water wheels ? 

A short time after my arrival, I set out one fine spring 
morning to view the various iron works in the lower part of 
the city. Looking through the bell foundries, rolling mills, 
Bessemer steel works and nail works on the route, I at last 
arrived at Burden's iron works upon the Wynantskill. 
Stepping into the office, I registered my humble name among 
the long list of visitors who had been there before me. The 
obliging clerk gave me a ticket of admission, and informed 
me that I would find some one at the gate who would show 
me around the works. 

Before going within I ascended the hill to the southward 
to view the scene. The Wynantskill has here worn a deep 
and wide gorge through the slaty rock, and runs down in a 
series of irregular rapids and cascades into the Hudson. 
From my point of view the whole valley of the stream was 
covered with the dusky roofs of the works for acres in ex- 
tent. From these roofs more than fifty chimneys towered, 
continually belching forth the flames of as many furnaces. 



232 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

Upon entering the works the visitor is bewildered at the 
sight of a mazy labyrinth of ponderous machinery, and 
deafened by its ceaseless roar. Fiery furnaces, day and 
night, convert the ore brought from far-off mountain mines 
into streams of molten metal. This is again changed by 
another process into lumps of malleable iron, so heated to 
whiteness that they resemble masses of glittering snow. 
Heavy rollers soon change these lumps into red-hot iron 
bars, that seem to wind their way like fiery serpents through 
the works. 

From these red-hot bars, wonderfully constructed ma- 
chines are forging horseshoes and railroad spikes, day and 
night, with marvellous facility. Six of these machines 
make horseshoes. Two strong-armed men at the old-fash- 
ioned anvil and forge can fashion some seventy horseshoes 
only in a day. These machines will each of them turn off 
sixty every minute, and twelve tons of them every twenty- 
four hours. These machines at Burden's works, forging 
horseshoes continually, day and night, with such wonder- 
ful rapidity, serve to render the speedy equipment of the 
vast armies of modern times possible. 

These machines thus forging spikes, render it possible to 
lay the iron rails athwart the continent with the rapidity 
that accords with our American notions of progress. From 
this maze of cunningly constructed machinery, which does 
the work of so many hundred human hands as skillfully as 
if endowed with human reason, I turned to my guide and 
desired him to show me the power that put it all in motion. 
He then led me in among the hissing iron bars, past the 
fiery furnaces, and up a flight of stairs into the heights of 
the vast building. Up in those dizzy heights we reached a 



THE TWO WATER WHEELS. 233 

platform there constructed. Standing upon this platform 
I saw before me a vast water wheel. There before me was 
an over-shot water wheel sixty-four feet in diameter, over 
two hundred feet in circumference, and twenty-four feet in 
width. Through an immense conduit in 'which a tall man 
could walk upright with ease, the waters of the 'Kill were 
drawn from a reservoir upon the hill side, and dashed upon 
its top with irresistible force. Its arms reached high above 
the platform where we stood, and revolving sank deep into 
an excavation in the ground below. Here then the tire- 
less energy that seemed to pervade the whole works like 
some all-controlling spirit of power was explained. Re- 
volving before me was the largest water wheel in the world. 
As I stood gazing at the ponderous wheel, a vague im- 
pression arose in my mind that I had seen it before. When 
or where, or whether I had not dreamed it all, I could not 
at first conceive. In another moment, however, scenes 
that had lain dormant in the memory for years flashed into 
consciousness. Then the busy scene in which I stood 
faded away. I was again in the gorge of the little stream 
that runs through the village of Lowville, and the waters 
were dashing and foaming over the Silvermine Falls. I 
saw the old man Dunklee, with white locks streaming in 
the wind, with extended arms holding up his little Alice to 
see his water wheel. But the vision of the past vanished 
as quickly as it came, and I was again conscious of the 
sharp reality. "No ! no !" I cried, "this is not Dunklee's 
water wheel, it is Burden's." Dunklee never saw his own 
wheel save in dreams. Here was Burden's wheel, a tangi- 
ble reality. Burden had never seen Dunklee — had never 

heard of him or his wheel — neither had Dunklee ever seen 
30 



234 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

or heard of Burden. Yet both had conceived the same 
idea, and both could comprehend alike the magical mysteries 
of mechanism and of motion. But one was a dreamer and 
the other was a worker. How vast the difference in the 
results of their lives. 

Dunklee's dreams never found expression in outward 
works, never lifted an arm in useful labor, never filled a 
single mouth with bread. 

Burden has embodied his conceptions, and they have be- 
come tangible shapes, working out wonderful results. His 
horseshoes ring over the pavements of a thousand cities in 
the Old World and in the New. At Shiloh, at Antietam, at 
Gettysburg, at Malvern Hill, in the Wilderness and before 
Richmond, in Sheridan's ride and Sherman's march, each 
fiery hoof that pranced along "the perilous edge of battle," 
was shod with shoes from Burden's works. Each iron rail 
that forms a link in the almost endless chain of railway 
that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, helping "to 
bind the silken chain of commerce round the world," is 
fastened in its bed with spikes from Burden's mills. 

Thus has Burden lightened Labor of her drudgery, and 
relieved Civilization of her wants. Thus has he given em- 
ployment to a thousand willing hands, and filled a thousand 
homes with daily bread. 

But can nothing be said for poor Dunklee.'' Are not the 
world's inventors, after all, the superiors of the world's 
workers ? Is not invention itself the highest kind of work ? 
Without the inventors, the world's mere workers would be 
but senseless plodders. 

Burden possessed in a high degree the gift of inventive 
genius, coupled with rare executive ability. But Nature is 



THE TWO WATER WHEELS. 235 

seldom thus prodigal of her favors, and poor Dunklee was 
gifted with as high constructive powers as Burden, but like 
nine-tenths of his class, Dunklee lacked the faculty of 
getting on in the world. 

But constructive power is one of the highest faculties 
of the human soul. To possess the constructive faculty in 
a high degree is the distinctive mark of genius. Without 
it the poet could never weave his undying songs ; the sculp- 
tor could never fashion his faultless figures, nor the musical 
composer unfold his immortal symphonies. It is in vain to 
attempt to belittle constructive power by pointing to the bee, 
the bird, and the beaver as examples of its existence in a 
high degree in beings inferior to man. Rather let us stand 
in awe before their matchless works, for their creations are 
but the handiwork of the Supreme Architect, who through 
them and by them manifests His ceaseless care, His change- 
less love, for his creatures. Call the world in which those 
persons live who possess high constructive powers, if you 
please, a world of dreams, yet out of it come all the useful 
and beautiful things of life. All the wonderful appliances 
for the aid and comfort of man which mark our era of 
civilization as the highest the world has ever seen, are the 
fruits of the world's inventors. All the marvelous works 
of art which seem to give to life its highest pleasures, 
come from the glowing ideals of the world's dreamers. The 
teeming brains of the world's great inventors give them no 
peace, no rest, until their ideals find outward expression 
in tangible forms of use and beauty. The world's inventors 
are the world's great teachers. Yet oftener than otherwise 
the world shows little favor to such men. "Hunger and 
nakedness," says Carlyle, "perils and reviling, the prison, 



236 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

the cross, the poison-chalice, have, in most times and coun- 
tries, been the market-price it has offered for Wisdom, the 
welcome with which it has greeted those who have come to 
enlighten and purify it." 

But the world's treasures do not satisfy the longings of 
such men. And what matters it if they do suffer from 
hunger, and thirst, and nakedness .'' They live in a world 
of their own creation, whose sky is blue in eternal beauty, 
and in which the nectar of the gods is not sweeter than 
their daily food. They have a deeper insight into the hidden 
things and beauties of the world around them, in which 
we all live, than most men have, and they are, in conse- 
quence of it, poets, painters and inventors — in a word, the 
world's great teachers. 

But the world has been dreaming too much, and working 
too little until now. The ages of the past have been ages 
of darkness, of superstition, of error, of dreams. The 
philosophers and sages of antiquity spent their lives in 
dreaming, scorning to do anything useful. The School-men 
were dreamers, the Crusaders were dreamers. The age of 
Chivalry was an age of romance and of dreams. Yet out 
of this chaos of dreams a new order of things has arisen. 
This new order is presided over by the genius of Useful 
Labor. Henceforth Useful Labor, guided by Science, by 
Art, by Inventive Genius, rules the world. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE STORY OF TOM GARNET'S DREAM. 

With a slow and noiseless footstep, 

Comes that messenger divine, 
Takes the vacant chair beside me. 

Lays her gentle hand in mine. 

— Longfelloiv , 



Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee, 

Take, — I give it willingly. 

For, invisible to thee, 

Spirits twain have crossed with me. 

— John Louis Uhland. 

I. 

The Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence present a 
scene of the most enchanting beauty. They occur where 
the river crosses a depression of the Laurentian chain of 
mountains, that there extend into Northern New York from 
their Canadian home. There these mountains seem kindly 
to stoop, as it were, in crossing, to allow the great river to 
flow on unobstructed to the ocean, their highest points only 
rising above the surface of the water to form these islands. 

From the Thousand Islands the Laurentides extend east- 
erly to the shores of Lake Champlain, southerly to the 
valley of the Mohawk, westerly to the Black River, and, 
rising into a vast system of highlands, form the rocky 
groundwork of the Great Wilderness, with its thousand 
mountain peaks and its thousand lakes in the intervening 
valleys. 

Here, its current partially obstructed by this mountain 
chain, the stream spreads into a broad, placid lake, with 
these thousand islands in fairy-like forms studding its sur- 
face. Sometimes they appear only as projecting rocks, 



230 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

with but room for a single dwarfish tree, or perhaps a sea- 
bird's nest — at others as high, rounded forms, forest crown- 
ed, and then again as a broad land of miles in extent, cov- 
ered with cultivated farms. Such a one is Wellesley's 
Island, already becoming famous as a camp meeting 
ground, and whose Indian name, Ta-ni-ha-ta^ which it de- 
rives from an old village of that name on the Canadian 
shore, should now be restored. 

In the soft, hazy light of the short Canadian summer, 
this "Lake of the Thousand Isles" seems more like the 
fabled oceans of the old fairy tales out of which arose the 
Islands of the Blessed, than it does like anything that be- 
longs to this work-a-day world of ours. 

In the month of June, not many years ago, it was my 
good fortune to visit the Thousand Islands upon a short 
pleasure excursion. I was accompanied by some friends, 
and our little party arrived at the village of Alexandria Bay 
on the American shore late in the afternoon of a sultry day. 
We were wearied by a long and dusty ride across the flat 
country that there skirts the great river, but soon forgot our 
troubles in viewing the glorious sunset that we were just in 
time for. It was so early that we were greeted at our 
hotel as the first guests of the season, and in the morning 
had our choice of boats and fishermen. 

We had planned a trip of a dozen miles or more up the 
river, with the intention of passing the night upon one of 
the islands there, and of returning on the morrow. As our 
boatmen rowed us slowly along up the broad river, around 
and among the islands, with our trolling lines all out, many 
a fine pike and pickerel was tempted to take the enticing 
bait, and was safely landed in our boats. 



TOM GARNET'S DREAM. 239 

In the course of the day one of our fair companions 
caught two vias-quin-on-ges. This was an exploit that she 
well might be proud of, for the true inas-quin-on-ge is quite 
a rare fish even in these waters, his native home. He is 
one of the most excellent as well as one of the most gamey 
fishes in our northern waters, and should not be confounded, 
as he too often is, with his near relative, although greatly 
inferior fish, the great northern pickerel. The iiias-qui?i- 
ou-ge, I give the old Indian name from Charlevoix, often 
weighs more than fifty pounds, and is as sprightly and 
rapid of movement as the brook trout. He affords the 
most exciting sport to the fishermen, and his firm but deli- 
cate, light salmon-colored flesh is prized by the epicure. 
So our fair friend suddenly found herself quite celebrated 
among the fishermen, for many an old frequenter of these 
waters can scarcely boast of having taken a single one of 
them. 

Late in the afternoon we came to the little island upon 
which we had thought to pass the night. There was a single 
cottage upon it, built for the accommodation of transient 
summer guests, containing a half dozen rooms or more, 
and an ample ice-house in which we secured our store of 
fish. 

The only guest upon the island when we arrived there 
was a retired officer of the United States navy, who, when 
in active service, had often cruised in these waters, and had 
now come to spend a few days in quiet meditation among 
the familiar scenes of former hardships and dangers. 

Strangers meeting in the wilderness, or in lonely places 
like this, quickly learn to waive all mere formalities; so at 
our coming the old officer gave us at once a kindly greet- 



240 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

ing, and we were soon on as familiar a footing as "though we 
had known one another for long intimate years. 

After supper we all sat out upon the cottage porch that 
faced the broad, open stretch of the river, called Kingston 
Bay, watching the coming on of the evening shadows and 
listening to the soothing, monotonous cry of the whippor- 
will upon the Canadian shore. As the sun went down in 
splendor beneath the western rim of shining waters, the 
report of the evening gun at* the distant British fort at 
Kingston came booming across the bay. The sound of the 
gun seemed to awaken tender memories in the mind of the 
- old officer, and we thought, as he turned musingly away, 
we saw a tear trickle down his weather-beaten cheek. 

After we had retired for the night, and the sense of in- 
tense quiet and repose that seemed to brood over the 
little island like the spirit of rest had lulled us into slumber, 
we were suddenly awakened by strange noises and rude 
voices in the adjoining rooms. We soon learned the nature 
of our retreat. The position of the little island, in respect 
to the boundary line, was not well defined, and being under 
doubtful jurisdiction, it was occasionally resorted to by 
gamblers, who could there ply their avocation without fear 
of arrest from either shore. All night long was heard the 
rattling of cards and dice, making night hideous. It was 
not until the dawn of the morning that the new comers 
ceased their horrible din, and we got a little sleep. When 
we awoke there was no one with us on the island but the 
old officer, who had been as much disturbed as we. Before 
the sun rose the gamblers had departed. 

Just as the sun was gloriously rising out of the gleaming 
sea of islands to the eastward, I went out upon the porch. 



TOM GARNET'S DREAM. 24 1 

The old officer was already there to bid me good morning. 
In another moment the sound of the British morning gun 
boomed across the bay. 

"I never hear," said he, "that single gun at Kingston, 
but I think of poor Tom Garnet, an old mess-mate of mine, 
who was killed there in the last war with Great Britain. 
But sit down," continued he, "and let me tell you his 
story." 

And there in the dewy freshness of 'that early hour of 
the summer's morning, we gathered around the old man to 
hear his story in the very scene of its enactment. 

II. 

"During the war with Great Britain of 1812," said he, 
"there were stirring times in these waters. Each nation 
strove for the mastery of the lakes, and ships and fleets 
were built and fitted out on both sides with marvelous 
celerity. It was not an uncommon thing in those days for 
a sloop of war to be launched all ready for active service 
from our ship yards, whose timbers forty days before were 
growing greenly in the forest. 

"In November, 181 2, I was a young sailor on board the 
staunch brig Oneida, that was commanded by Lieutenant 
Woolsey, and was attached to the American fleet then 
cruising under Commodore Chauncey. For a day or two 
our fleet had been chasing the British sloop of war the 
Royal George, among the Thousand Islands, and in the 
early hours of a bleak morning had driven her into Kings- 
ton harbor. Then occurred the daring assault upon the 
Royal George by our little fleet, under the very guns of the 
31 



242 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

frowning fort, that reflected so much honor upon our gal- 
lant seamen. 

"Tom Garnet was a sailor on board our brig. He had 
been for many years in the British service, but had lately 
enlisted into our navy, and was ordered on board our ves- 
sel. Tom had not been long on board before he became 
the favorite of all the officers and men, and being a most 
thorough seaman, was made captain of the forecastle. Tom 
was brave to a fault, unfaltering in the performance of every 
duty, and always at his post. But he was as gentle as a 
woman, and at times an irrepressible sadness seemed to 
weigh down his spirits, and to cast a settled gloom over his 
life. Some great and abiding sorrow was weighing heavily 
upon the heart of poor Tom, but none of us knew what it 
was. What was our surprise then, on the morning of the 
battle, to see Tom's face beaming with smiles. A great 
change had suddenly come over his brooding spirits, and 
Tom was as light-hearted as a child. His comrades quick- 
ly noticed the change, and wonderingly inquired the cause. 

"Oh! I shall be with them to-day," said Tom, "I shall 
see them to-day." 

"With whom ?" said his comrades. 

"With Mary, my wife, and our child in heaven," said he, 
with great earnestness. "Last night I thought, in my dream, 
I saw her disembodied spirit among the angels, and a little 
one was by her side whom I had never seen, and they 
beckoned me to come. I am sure I shall go to-day, and 
be with them at last. But you cannot understand me," con- 
tinued Tom, " until I tell you all about how it has been 
with me. In the first place let me divide between you, my 
comrades, what few things I have When I am gone they 



TOM GARNET'S DREAM. 243 

will remind you of poor Tom. As soon as the morning 
breaks we shall go into action and I shall be killed. They 
seemed to tell me so." 

The sailors were at first disposed to laugh at what they 
supposed were Tom's disordered fancies, but his great 
earnestness of manner indicated his firm belief in the 
truthfulness of his presentiment, and having a high appre- 
ciation of his character, they checked their hilarity, and 
each in turn received from his hand some little trinket, or a 
part of his wardrobe as a keepsake. 

And after the distribution was made, the sailors of poor 
Tom's mess gathered round him in the forecastle, in the 
gloomy dawn of that wild Canadian autumn morning, while 
the fleet was putting on sail to engage the enemy, and lis- 
tened to poor Tom's story. 



III. 

"My father," said Tom, "was a well-to-do English far- 
mer, who lived in the days of our childhood, in the country 
about forty miles back from Liverpool. I was his first-born 
and heir, and when I was of age I married the daughter of 
our nearest neighbor. We were to settle down upon the 
farm and take care of the old folks, who were already well 
along in years. A few short, happy weeks flew quickly by, 
and our honeymoon was over. Then my father loaded his 
cart with corn, and sent me off to the distant city to ex- 
change it for some things for our housekeeping. 

"When I left the old home farm that morning, with my 
cart and oxen and load of freight, Mary, my wife, kissed 
me good-bye again and again. 



244 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

" 'You will not be gone long, will you, dear Tom?' said 
she. 

" It was our first and last parting. But twenty years of 
toil and hardship have not wasted the sweetness of her last 
kiss from my lips. And her image — how bright and beau- 
tiful her image appears to me this morning, as in my memo- 
ry I see her standing at the old farm gate, bidding me 
good-bye as I drove the oxen down the lane out of her 
sight toward the great citw. 

" I had never before been in town, and it was to me full 
of wonders. 

" After I had sold my corn, I bought some things for our 
housekeeping, and had loaded them on my cart, all ready 
to start on my homeward journey, when I was roughly 
seized by one of the king's press-gangs, that were the terror 
of every seaport town in those days, and of which I in my 
simplicity had never before heard. In spite of my tears 
and my entreaties, I was rudely bound, hand and foot, and 
dragged, more dead than alive, on board of one of his 
majesty's ships that was on the eve of setting sail upon a 
long East Indian voyage. 

" On the morrow the ship sailed. My oxen were left to 
wander uncared for through the streets of the city, with my 
precious load of what was to have been our household 
goods, and before I had the least opportunity to send a 
single word home to my wife and family to relieve the 
dreadful anxiety that my long and unaccountable absence 
must have occasioned them, we were far out upon the 
broad ocean. In the course of a few months we entered 
the Indian Ocean, and it was seven long years before our 
ship again cast anchor, upon her return voyage, in the har- 



TOM GARNET'S DREAM. 245 

bor of Liverpool. During this long time I had never heard 
one word from home or friends. 

"After our arrival at the home port I was paid my hard- 
earned wages and received my discharge. I soon reached 
the welcome shore, and at once hurried out of the now- 
dreaded city toward my old home in the country. I was 
so changed in appearance by years of exposure under a 
burning sun, that I was sure no one would know me. But 
haggard and worn as I was, my heart was light at the 
thought of soon meeting my dear wife and friends once 
more, and so I pressed eagerly onward until night overtook 
me. I was afraid to call at an inn, lest from my dress and 
appearance I should excite suspicion and be arrested as a 
deserter from the navy. Finding a stack of straw in a 
lonely nook, I crept under it and slept through the night. 
In the morning a dense fog enveloped everyt^iing, and I 
groped my way on without knowing whither I was going. 
It so happened that I wandered into the king's broad high- 
way just in time to fall in with another press gang who 
were passing by. They seized me, and utterly regardless 
of my entreaties, and in spite of my situation, hurried me 
on board another vessel that was soon under weigh for the 
distant western coast of South America. 

"After we had been cruising about for several years in 
the Southern Pacific, I managed to escape from my captiv- 
ity, and crossing the Andes alone and on foot, arrived, 
after many wanderings and hairbreadth escapes, weary and 
worn, at an Atlantic port. There the first opportunity that 
offered for sailing was on board of an American man-of- 
war that was homeward bound. Impatient to leave, I en- 
listed in the American navy as a common sailor for the 



246 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

term of one year. Our ship arrived in New York harbor 
a few months ago. I was soon transferred to Commodore 
Chauncey's fleet, as you now see me. 

" I have never heard one word from home since my wife 
bid me good-bye at the old farm gate, and that is now 
twenty long years ago. But last evening, as I swung in my 
hammock, I fell asleep, and I saw her in my dreams, as I 
have told you already. She and our little one must have 
died in my absence, and I shall be with them to-day." 



IV. 

"When Tom had concluded his story," continued the old 
officer, "there was not a dry eye in that circle of hard- 
faced men, and in a moment after the command came harsh 
and loud to clear the decks for action. And then our little 
ship rode gallantly up under the guns of the fort and pour- 
ed a broadside into the Royal George. Soon we saw a 
light puff of smoke curl upward from one of the batteries 
on the shore, and a nine pound cannon shot went crashing 
across our deck. 

"It struck poor Tom, and he fell dead at our feet. As 
his body lay upon the deck with face upturned, there was a 
smile playing upon his stiffening features that will haunt me 
to my dying day. Death had to him no terrors. He wel- 
comed its coming. It opened to him the door of Heaven, 
to show him those he loved. The smile upon his face was 
a smile of recognition." 

As the old man concluded his story, he arose from his 
seat and bade us good-bye. 

And now the strangest thing about this story of Tom 



I 



TOM GARNET'S DREAM. 247 

Garnet is its truth, for it is not all romance, but veritable 
history. Dr. Hough, in his " History of Jefferson County, 
N. Y.," on page 471, places upon record an account of Tom 
Garnet's singular presentiment and death, which is sub- 
stantially the same as the one I have woven into the warp 
of my story. Says the learned historian, in concluding his 
narrative, and I use his very words : 

"Chauncey's fleet sailed and engaged the enemy's bat- 
teries in the harbor of Kingston, as above related ; the first 
shot from which was a nine pound ball, that crossed the deck 
of the Oneida and passed through the body of Tom Garnet, 
at his post. He fell instantly dead, with the same smile 
upon his countenance that habit had impressed. This 
singular coincidence and verification of presentiment is so 
well attested by authentic witnesses that it merits the at- 
tention of the curious." 

I cannot explain these things, dear reader, can you ? 

We know not how or why they are so, but this we do 
know, that the images that fancy paints upon the walls of 
our memory, of our dear friends long absent or long dead, 
are beautiful beyond the power of language to describe. 

We have hanging on the walls of our habitations the like- 
nesses of our lost or long absent loved ones, that were taken 
of their frail bodies when they were with us or were with 
the living : but how different they all are from the magical 
pictures of them that hang on memory's walls ! 

Their portraits taken by human hands, once so lovely to 
us, as time wears on begin to appear is if there was some- 
thing too gross and earthly about them to be the true images 
of the absent ones whom they represent, and we at length 
begin to turn our eyes from them as unsatisfactory, and to 



248 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

gaze inwardly upoii the more enchanting pictures of memo- 
ry. Then it is that the pictures of memory rise up before 
us so transcendently beautiful. Then it is that it seems to 
our mind's eye that that which was sown in dishonor is al- 
ready arisen in glory. 

Childish innocence, womanly grace and manly power may 
be to us attractive beyond measure in the living forms of 
those we love, but transfigured in the half-remembered 
features of the dead, these blessed attributes of our poor 
earthly humanity seem to betray to us mortals some faint 
foretaste of the glories of the hereafter. 

Again, we know that Sleep, the gentle queen of rest, is 
the twin sister of Death, the awful king of terrors. Be- 
tween their dominions there is but a narrow boundary, and 
across it may not their subjects sometimes, in some myste- 
rious way, hold converse.'' Do not kindred spirits in either 
realm sometimes burst through the frail barriers, and half 
concealing, half reveal their awful secrets to each other, 
that are remembered by the living, when awakened, as but 
dreams. 

Did the image of his long absent bride haunt the mem- 
ory of Tom Garnet, until it became to him as it were a 
real presence; or did she really whisper to him in his dream 
through the prison bars ? 

As the morning sun rose gloriously in the heavens, we 
left the little island, and it soon grew dim and shadowy in 
the distance ; but the story of poor Tom Garnet was im- 
pressed indelibly upon our memories. 

The wind arose, and the dancing waves soon entranced 
us with their splendor. As our little skiffs rode over their 
crested tops among the shining islands on our homeward 



TOM GARNET'S DREAM. 249 

way, the story of Tom Garnet's dream as well as the inci- 
dents of our night's visit to the little island we had left be- 
hind us faded from my thoughts, and in their places the 
words of the poet came into my mind, and I fancied I 
could hear him singing his song : 

" The Thousand Isles, the Thousand Isles, 
Dimpled, the wave around them smiles. 
Kissed by a thousand red-lipped flowers, 
Gemmed by a thousand emerald bowers, 
A thousand birds their praises wake. 
By rocky glade and plumy brake, 
A thousand cedars' fragrant shade. 
Fall where the Indians' children played. 
And fancy's dream my heart beguiles, 
While singing thee, the Thousand Isles. 

" No vestal virgin guards their groves. 
No Cupid breathes of Cyprian loves. 
No Satyr's form at eve is seen. 
No Dryad peeps the trees between, 
No Venus rises from their shore. 
No loved Adonis red with gore, 
No pale Endymion wooed to sleep, 
No brave Leander breasts their deep. 
No Ganymede, no Pleiades, 
Their's are a New World's memories. 

" There St. Lawrence gentlest flows, 
There the south wind softest blows, 
There the lilies whitest bloom, 
There the birch has leafiest gloom. 
There the red deer feed in spring, 
There doth glitter wood duck's wing, 
There leaps the Mas-quin-on-ge at morn, 
There the loon's night song is borne, 
There is the fisherman's paradise. 
With trolling skiff at red sunrise." 



32 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THE^ST. LAWRENCE OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

Faintly as tolls the evening chime 
Our voices keep tune, and our oars keep time ; 
Soon as the woods on the shores look dim, 
We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn. 
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast, 
■ The rapids are near and the daylight's past. 

Why should we yet our sail unfurl ? 
There is not a breath the blue wave to curl ; 
But when the wind blows off the shore, 
Oh ! sweetly we'll rest on our weary oar. 
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast. 
The rapids are near and the daylight's past. 

— Tom Moore. 

I. 

THE RIVER OF THE THOUSAND ISLES. 

The old Indian Ho-che-la-ga Ga-hun-da, the great river 
of the ancient forest state of that name, now called the 
River St. Lawrence, still rolls its tide through its mountain 
barriers and among its wonderful islands as in the days of 
yore, but in its valley a new race of people have sprung up, 
who find few traces of the savage warriors and bold ex- 
plorers who for more than two hundred years after its first 
discovery by white men, frequented its shores, and sped 
their bark canoes over its waters. 

The first white man who gazed upon the enchanting 
beauty of the Lake of the Thousand Isles, it is probable, 
was Samuel de Champlain, the founder of New France. 
The reader will remember that Champlain, in the autumn 
of the year 1615, while on a voyage of exploration to Lake 
Huron, united with a war party of Huron braves in a 
hostile expedition against the Iroquois of western New 
York. The trail this expedition took led from the Huron 



THE ST. LAWRENCE OF THE OLDEN TIME. 25 I 

country south-easterly to the River Trent, and down that 
river to its mouth, at Catarocoui, now the city of Kingston, 
on Lake Ontario, at the head of the great river. From 
Kingston the Indian trail led down the river around Wolfe 
Island, and thence up the American channel past Carleton 
Island, and along the coast of the lake to the mouth of the 
Oswego river. In pleasant weather they sometimes avoided 
this circuitous route, and struck boldly across the lake to 
the westward of Wolfe Island. This last-named route 
Champlain took on his way to the Iroquois cantons. But 
this route was a dangerous one for light canoes, and was 
seldom taken. So Champlain, in following the old trail of 
the war-path in returning, must have entered the westerly 
end of the Lake of the Thousand Isles. 

After Champlain, the first visitor of note to the upper 
St. Lawrence and the Thousand Islands was the Jesuit 
Father, Simon Le Moyne, on his journey to the country of 
the Onondagas in the summer of 1654. It was while on 
this visit to the Onondagas that Father Le Moyne became 
the discoverer of the famous salt springs of Syracuse. The 
Indians knew of the salt springs, but believed their waters 
were possessed of a demon or evil spirit, and dare not 
touch them. Father Le Moyne boiled some of the water, 
and made a quantity of salt, which he says, in his diary, was 
equal to that made from the water of the sea. 

After Le Moyne came La Salle and Frontenac, De la 
Barre, La Hontan, Hennepin and Charlevoix, and a long 
line of names illustrious in Canadian annals. 



252 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

II. 

THE BIRTH-NIGHT OF MONTREAL. 

The Story of the founding of the city of Montreal is 
more like a religious romance of the middle ages than 
veritable history. The reader will not forget that the 
Island of Montreal was the site of the ancient Iroquois 
village, Ho-che-la-ga, the capital of the old forest state of 
that name discovered by Jacques Cartier in the year 1535, 
and that when Champlain first visited the Island in 1603, 
the old state and its capital had alike disappeared, and its 
site was occupied only by a few Algonquin fishing huts. 

But a newer and more brilliant destiny awaited the site 
of ancient Ho-che-la-ga, the then wild Island of Montreal. 

About the year 1636, there dwelt at La Fl^che, in Anjou, 
a religious enthusiast deeply imbued with the mysticism of 
the times, whose name was Jerome le Royer de la Dauver- 
si^re. It is related of Dauversiere by the pious historians 
of the period that one day while at his devotions he heard 
an inward voice, which he deemed a voice from Heaven, 
commanding him to become the founder of a new order of 
hospital nuns, and to establish for such nuns, to be con- 
ducted by them, a hospital, or Hutel-Dieu, on the then wild 
Island of Montreal. 

It is further related that while Dauversiere was behold- 
ing his ecstatic visions at La Fleche, a young priest of sim- 
ilar mystical tendencies, whose name was Jean Jacques 
Olier, while praying in the ancient church of St. Germain 
des Pr^s at Paris, also heard a voice from Heaven com- 
manding him to form a society of priests, and establish 



THE ST. LAWRENCE OF THE OLDEN TIME. 253 

them on an island called Montreal in Canada for the prop- 
agation of the True Faith. 

Full of his new idea, Dauversiere set out for Paris to 
find some means of accomplishing his object. While at 
Paris he visited the chateau of Meudon near by, and on 
entering the gallery of the old castle saw a young priest 
approaching him. It was Olier. " Neither of these two 
men," says the old chronicler, " had ever seen or heard of 
the other, yet impelled by a kind of inspiration, they knew 
each other at once even to the depths of their hearts ; sa- 
luted each other by name as we read of St. Paul, the Her- 
mit, and St. Anthony, of St. Dominic and St. Francis; and 
ran to embrace each other like two friends who had met 
after a long separation." 

After performing their devotions in the chapel, the two 
devotees walked for three hours in the park, discussing and 
forming their plans. Before they parted, they had resolved 
to found at Montreal three religious communities — one of 
secular priests, one of nuns to nurse the sick, and one of 
nuns to teach the white and red children. 

By the united efforts of Olier and Dauversiere, an asso- 
ciation was formed called the Society of Notre Dame de 
Montreal, and a colony projected. The island was purchas- 
ed of its owners, the successors of the Hundred Associates 
of Quebec, and erected into a Seigneurie by the King, 
henceforth to be called Villetnarie de Montreal, and conse- 
crated to the Holy Family. But it was necessary to have 
a soldier-governor to place in charge of the colony, and 
for this purpose the Associates of Montreal selected Paul 
de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, a devout and valiant 
gentleman, who had already seen much military service. 



254 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

It was thought necessary also that some discreet woman 
should embark with them as their nurse and housekeeper. 
For this purpose they selected Mademoiselle Jeanne 
Mance, a religious devotee, who was born of a noble family 
of Nogent-le-Roi. She was filled with zeal for the new 
mission. In it she thought she had found her destiny. The 
ocean, the solitude, the wilderness, the Iroquois, did not 
deter her from her high purpose, and this delicate and re- 
fined woman at once, with enthusiastic devotion, cast her 
frail life upon the rock of desolation to christianize a strange 
land, and to soothe with her gentle influence the wildness 
of barbarous men. 

At length in the summer of 1641, the ships set sail with 
Maisonneuve and his forty men, with Mademoiselle Mance 
and three other women on board. But they reached Que- 
bec too late in the autumn to think of ascending to Mont- 
real that season. While passing the long tedious winter at 
Quebec, the members of this new company were treated 
with much coldness by Governor Montmagny, who saw a 
rival governor in Maisonneuve. Early in May, 1642, they 
embarked for their new home, having gained an unexpected 
recruit in the person of Madame de la Peltrie, another 
pious lady, who had also cast her fortunes in the wilderness, 
but it was not until 1653 that the gentle Marguerite of 
Bourgeoys came to bless the young colony with her pre- 
sence. All was seeming peace as they paddled their canoes 
along near the banks of the stream, decked in the budding 
beauties of the opening spring-tide ; but behind every leafy 
thicket and rocky island lurked a danger and a terror — the 
fierce Iroquois on the war-path. 



THE ST. LAWRENCE OF THE OLDEN TIME. 255 

On the eighteenth of May they arrived at the wild island 
of Montreal, and landed on the very site chosen for a city 
by Champlain thirty-one years before. Montmagny was 
with them to deliver the island in behalf of the Company 
of the Hundred Associates to Maisonneuve, the agent of 
the Associates of Montreal, and Father Vimont, the Superior 
of the Jesuit Missions in Canada, was there in spiritual 
charge of the young colony. Maisonneuve and his follow- 
ers sprang ashore, and falling on their knees, all devoutly 
joined their voices in songs of thanksgiving. 

Near by, where they landed, was a rivulet bordered by a 
meadow, beyond which rose the ancient forest like a band 
of iron. The early flowers of spring were blooming in the 
young grass of the meadow, and the woods were filled 
with singing birds. A simple altar was raised on a pleasant 
spot not far from the shore. The ladies decorated it with 
flowers. Then the whole band gathered before the shrine. 
Father Vimont stood before the altar clad in the rich vest- 
ments of his office. The Host was raised aloft while they 
all kneeled in reverent silence. When the solemn rite was 
over, the priest turned to the little band, and said : 

"You are a grain of mustard-seed that shall rise and 
grow till its branches overshadow the earth : You are few 
but your work is the work of God. His smile is on you 
and your children shall fill the land." 

As the day waned and twilight came on, the darkened 
meadow, bereft of its flowers, became radiant with twinkling 
fire-flies. Mademoiselle Mance, Madame de la Peltrie 
aided by her servant, Charlotte Barr^, caught the fire-flies, 
and tying them with threads into shining festoons, hung 
them before the altar where the Host remained exposed. 



256 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

Then the men lighted their camp-fires, posted their sentries, 
and pitched their tents, and all lay down to rest. "It was 
the birth-night of Montreal."* 

Old Indian Ho-che-la-ga was no more. A new race had 
come to people the wilderness and unfurl the banner of the 
Cross on the great river of the Thousand Isles. 

III. 

CARLETON ISLAND. 

" Uttawa's tide ; this trembling moon 
Shall see us float over thy surges soon, 
Saint of this green isle ! hear our prayers, 
Oh ! grant us cool heavens and favoring airs." 

In the broad channel of the St. Lawrence, as its waters 
leave Lake Ontario and run between Kingston on the Can- 
adian and Cape Vincent on the American shore, are several 
islands. One of the most noted of these is Carleton Island, 
which is situate in the American channel, four or five miles 
northerly of Cape Vincent. Carleton Island was known to 
the old French explorers as the Isle aux Chevreuils, or Isle 
of Roe Bucks. It lay in the line of the old Indian trail, 
which ran from the Canadian shore of Lake Ontario to the 
Iroquois cantons on its southern border, which trail avoid- 
ed by its coast line the rough and dangerous waves of the 
open lake, and it lay also in the line of the great western trail. 
There being at the head of this island what Father Charle- 
voix, who, as the reader has already seen, visited it in 1720, 
calls "a pretty port that can receive large barques," it was a 
favorite stopping place and camping ground in all the long 
colonial period. 

* Parkman's Jesuits in North America, p. 209, and Charlevoix's His- 
tory of New France, translated by John G. Shea. 



THE ST. LAWRENCE OF THE OLDEN TIME. 257 

But what render this little island of more historical in- 
terest than the many other islands of the group, are the re- 
mains of a strong military work, which was constructed 
upon it in the latter part of the last century, crowning the 
brink of the bluff at the head of the island, overlooking 
the " pretty port" and commanding the American channel 
of the great river. This fortification is now known as Fort 
Carleton, but in regard to its origin and the date of its con- 
struction there has been a great deal of conjecture and not 
a little controversy among historical inquirers. It has been 
supposed by some that this fort was begun by the French 
during the last years of the French and Indian wars before 
the English conquest of Canada, but Pouchot, in his Me- 
moirs, while minutely describing every other fort and 
station along the whole northern frontier, says nothing of 
this work, and we must believe that had so important a sta- 
tion as this been then fortified, it would not have been 
overlooked by so careful and accurate an observer as M. 
Pouchot. Again it has been alleged that these works were 
begun by Sir Guy Carleton, Governor General of Canada 
during the war of the Revolution, and the island and the 
fort at that time named in his honor. But the histories of 
those times are silent on this subject, and the celebrated 
French traveler, the Due de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, 
in an account of his journey along the St. Lawrence, in the 
year 1795, says of this island : " During the American war 
the British troops were constantly in motion, and in later 
times they were quartered in an island which the French 
called Isle aux C/icvrcitils, and which the English have 
named Carleton, after Lord Dorchester." 

Then again, in a full and complete Canadian Gazetteer, 
33 



258 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

published by David W. Smyth, the able and careful Sur- 
veyor General of the upper province, in 1799, no mention 
is made of any Fort Carleton, but it is said therein of Carle- 
ton Island : " Kingston garrison furnishes a detachment to 
this place." It is therefore more than probable that this 
fortification was never known to the British as "Fort 
Carleton," but was merely considered by them as an advance 
work connected with the defence of Kingston. Kingston 
was not founded until the year 1784, and this island was 
not known as Carleton Island until the year 1792, when 
by the royal proclamation of the 2d of July of that year, 
the old French and Indian names of several islands of the 
St. Lawrence, including this, were changed, and called in 
honor of British generals distinguished in the American 
wars. Hence we have Howe Island, Gage Island, Wolfe 
Island, Amherst Island, as well as Carleton Island, all of 
whose present names date from the proclamation of 1792. 
Kingston was built upon the site of the old Indian Cata- 
rocoui, and of the old French Fort Frontenac. Fort Fron- 
tenac was begun by Gov. Daniel de Remi, Seiur de Cour- 
celle, in the year 1671, and finished the next year by the 
chivalrous Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac, whose 
name it bore. It was utterly destroyed by the English 
under Gen. Bradstreet in 1758, and was never rebuilt. 

The work on Carleton Island is a bastioned half-front of 
a hexagonal fort of some eight hundred feet diameter, open 
at the rear toward the brink of the bluff overlooking the 
cove. The ditch, twenty-two feet wide and four feet deep, 
is excavated in the solid rock. The covered way was 
twenty-four feet wide, and the parapet four feet high. The 
front of the fort commands the approach from the island, 



THE ST. LAWRENCE OF THE OLDEN TIME. 259 

while a heavy sea-wall, forty feet in height, is built along 
the bluff that borders the cove. Several chimneys are still 
standing within the fort and near it, built of stone in a 
permanent and massive manner, while the remains of guard 
houses, rifle-pits and wells are still plainly visible. Not 
far from the fort is an old burying-ground, in which many 
graves were found, and on the south side of the island 
was a large clearing of some thirty acres, called the King's 
garden. Along the western shore of the little cove are 
still to be seen the remains of a sunken dock. Many relics 
have from time to time been found near the fort, all bear- 
ing marks of British origin. 

In 1796 the surveyors of Macomb's purchase found a 
British corporal and three men in charge of Carleton 
Island, and four long twelve and two six-pound cannon 
mounted on the works. 

This island was occupied by the British until the war of 
18 1 2, when its little garrison was surprised and taken by 
the Americans, by whom it has ever since been occupied. 

After the war the right to Carleton Island became the sub- 
ject of much diplomatic correspondence between the two 
governments. This controversy was carried on during the 
presidency of Mr. Monroe by John Q. Adams, Secretary of 
State, on our part. It resulted in the boundary line being 
drawn to the north of the island, leaving it in American 
waters. 

And now this little island, so fraught with historic mem- 
ories, is the summer resort of the Carleton Island Club, an 
association of gentlemen who have built their summer cot- 
tage and pitch their tents on the meadow that borders the 
banks of the " pretty port " of the old chronicler, and in sight 



26o NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

of the decaying walls of the old fort. Here in this enchant- 
ing spot, among the Thousand Isles, made classic in Amer- 
ican story by the presence long ago of a Champlain, a La 
Hontan, a La Salle, a Courcelle, a Frontenac, a De la 
Barre, a Charlevoix, they take a yearly respite from busy 
toil, and while away the fleeting hours of the short Cana- 
dian summer in careless repose, dispensing a right royal 
hospitality. 

IV. 

LA PRESENTATION. 

The city of Ogdensburgh is in all respects a modern 
city. Nothing along her streets, or in her surroundings, 
indicates a day's existence earlier than the beginning of the 
nineteenth century. Yet she is built upon the site of a city 
of the dead, and her modern dwellings rest upon the ruins 
of ancient hearth-stones. The mission of La Presetitation 
was founded in the year 1749, on the banks of the St. Law- 
rence, at the mouth of the Oswegatchie River, by the cele- 
brated Sulspician Missionary Father Picquet, upon the site 
of the old Indian village named Swa-gatch. 

In colonial times, the St. Lawrence was one of the great 
highways of the continent. In the olden time an Indian trail 
led from the Mohawk Valley to the St. Lawrence. This trail 
from the Mohawk ran up the West Canada Creek, and a 
branch of it from Fort Stanwix up the valley of the Lan- 
sing Kill to the waters of the Black River ; thence down 
the valley of the Black River to the Great Bend below 
Carthage ; thence over a short carry to the Indian River ; 
thence down the Indian River and through Black Lake into 
the River 0-swa-gatch, and down that stream to the St. 



THE ST. LAWRENCE OF THE OLDEN TIME. 26 I 

Lawrence. It was at the northern termination of this old 
Indian trail at the mouth of the O-swa-gatc/i that the Abb^ 
Picquet founded, in the year 1749, his mission and settle- 
ment of La Presentation, so often afterward the terror of 
the settlers in the Mohawk valley. As early as the 20th of 
October of that year Father Picquet had completed at his 
mission a palisaded fort, a house, a barn, a stable, and an 
oven. He commenced a clearing, and the first year had 
but six heads of families, but in 1751 there were three 
hundred and ninety-six families of Christian Iroquois, com- 
prising in all about three thousand people, in the little 
colony. The object of this mission was to attach, if possi- 
ble, the Iroquois cantons to the French. In all the battles 
and massacres of the French and Indian wars in the Mo- 
hawk valley, at Lake George and along the Hudson, up to 
Montcalm's defeat in 1759, the 0-swa-gatch Indians played 
a conspicuous part. But in 1760, at the conquest of 
Canada, the post of La Presentation fell into the hands of 
the English, and the fort was for many years afterward oc- 
cupied by a British garrison. 

FranQois Picquet, doctor of the Sorbonne, King's Mis- 
sionary and Prefect Apostolic to Canada, was born at 
Bourg in Bresse, on the 6th of December, 1708. At the 
early age of seventeen he became a missionary, and at 
twenty entered the Congregation of Saint Sulspice. In 
1733 he was led to the Missions of North America, where, 
as we have seen, he labored with such zeal for thirty years 
that he obtained the title of "The Apostle of the Iroquois." 
He returned to France, and died at Verjon on the 15th of 
July, 1781. 

To-day two important railroad lines follow the old Indian 



262 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

trails between the Mohawk and the St. Lawrence, and as 
the mission of La Presentation took the place of the old 
Indian village Swa-gatch at the northern end of the old war- 
trail, so, to-day, the modern city of Ogdensburgh, situate 
at the northern terminus of the railroad lines, takes the 
place of La Presentation. Of this mission scarce a relic 
now remains, save the corner-stone of the main building, 
which is still preserved, bearing the inscription : 

In nomine "{" Dei omnipotentis 
Huic habitationi initia dedit 
Frans. Picquet, 17 4g. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

THE COUNTY OF CHARLOTTE. 

It is finished. What is finished ? 
Much is finished, known or unknown ; 
• Lives are finished ; time diminished ; 
Was the fallow field left unsown ? 
Will these buds be always unblown ? 

— Christina Rossetti. 

I. 

Like Tryon county, its twin sister, the county of Char- 
lotte is now almost a mythical name in the annals of New 
York. The county of Charlotte, as the reader has already 
seen, was set off from the county of Albany and formed on 
the 24th day of March, 1772. It was so named in honor of 
the Princess Charlotte, daughter of George III, or as some 
say, of the Queen Consort, Charlotte of Mecklenburgh- 
Strelitz. It included all that part of the state which lay 
to the east of the Tryon county line, and to the north of 
the present counties of Saratoga and Rensselaer, embracing 
the present counties of Washington, Warren, Essex and 
Clinton, the eastern part of Franklin county, and the west- 
ern half of the state of Vermont. 

Fort Edward was made the county-seat of Charlotte 
county, and the first court was held at the house of Pat- 
rick Smith in that village, on the 19th of October, 1773, 
by Judges William Duer and Philip Schuyler. The first 
clerk of the court was Daniel McCrea, the brother of Jeanie 
McCrea, whose tragic death soon after occured near where 
the court then sat. 

Among the important land grants made in colonial times 
was the singular one made by Gov. Fletcher on the 3d of 



264 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

September, 1696, to his favorite, Godfrey Dellius, the min- 
ister of the Dutch church of Albany. This grant was a 
large tract of land lying in this county, as will be seen by 
the following description, copied literally from the grant, 
viz: "A certaine Tract of Land lying upon the East side 
of Hudson's River, between the Northermost bounds of 
Saraggtoga and the Rock Retsio, Containing about Seventy 
Miles in Length, and Goes backwards into the woods from 
the said Hudson's River twelve Miles until it comes unto 
the wood Creeke, and so far as it goes be it twelve miles 
more or lesse from Hudson's River on the East side, and 
from said creek by a Line twelve Miles distant from River, 
to our Loving Subject the Reverend Godfredius Dellius, 
Minister of the Gospell att our city of Albany, He Yielding 
Rendering and Paying therefore Yearly and every Year unto 
us our Heirs and Successours on the first Day of the An- 
nunciation of our blessed Virgin Mary, at our city of New 
Yorke the Annuall Rent of one Raccoon Skinn in Lieu and 
Steade of all other Rents Services Dues Dutyes and De- 
mands whatsoever for the said Tract of Land and Islands 
and Premises." But in May, 1699, the Assembly vacated 
this grant and suspended Mr. Dellius from the ministry on 
account of his complicity in land speculations. It has been 
said that Dellius, after his return to Holland, sold his in- 
terest in this tract to his successor in the ministry, the Rev. 
Johannes Lydius. But John Henry Lydius, son of Jo- 
hannes, who settled at the Great Carrying Place, now Fort 
Edward, on the Hudson, in 1732, claimed the land by vir- 
tue of certain grants made directly to himself by the Indians, 
and not from Dellius. 

When the name of Tryon county was changed to Mont- 



THE COUNTY OF CHARLOTTE. 265 

gomery, in 1784, the name of the county of Charlotte was 
changed to Washington. 

II. 

FORT EDWARD. 

Two hundred years ago the site of what is now the vill- 
lage of Fort Edward was known in forest annals as " The 
Great Carrying Place." It was the landing place on the 
Hudson from which the old Indian trail ran overland for 
twelve miles through the pine forest to the falls on Wood 
Creek that runs into Lake Champlain. From these falls 
the Wood Creek was navigable to the head of the lake. In 
those days, however, it was called Wood Creek as far down 
as Crown Point. In the days of the early expeditions 
planned by the English colonies for the conquest of Canada 
in the old French and Indian wars, the Great Carrying 
Place lying in the direct route of the old northern war- 
path, became the scene of stirring events. The first of 
those famous expeditions that passed over it was the one 
fitted out for Gen. Fitz-John Winthrop in July, 1690. But 
it was not until the year 1709 that a permanent fort was 
built there. In that year, Col. Peter Schuyler built a stock- 
aded work there, which he named Fort Nicholson, in honor 
of the commanding general. 

On the return of another expedition in the year 171 1, 
Fort Nicholson was burned, and the Great Carrying Place 
was abandoned to its savage tenants until the year 1721. In 
that year Gov. Burnet repaired the old fort, built a small 
block-house there, and stationed in it a detachment of 
soldiers to protect the interests of the English fur trade in 

the wilderness. 
34 



266 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

And now one of those prominent characters that so often 
flit across the dim and shadowy stage of our almost for- 
gotten colonial history, appears upon the scene at the Great 
Carrying Place. John Henry Lydius was a son of the Rev. 
Johannes Lydius, a minister of the old Dutch church at 
Albany. He was six feet and three inches in height, well- 
formed, and a man of much influence in the colony. For 
some time he was a successful rival of Sir William Johnson 
in his influence over the Mohawks, but in the end the In- 
dians became so suspicious of him that they would not 
allow his presence at their councils. In 1732 he purchased 
of the Indians a large tract of land, covering the Great 
Carrying Place. Lydius began a settlement on the ruins of 
old Fort Nicholson, built a block house known as Fort 
Lydius, erected a saw-mill, and made various other im- 
provements. For a dozen years he lived there, mostly en- 
gaged in the fur trade, and his little colony flourished in its 
lone forest position until the war of 1745 broke out. Then 
the French and Indians on their way to the massacre at 
Saratoga of that year scattered his tenants, burnt his build- 
ings, and sent Lydius a wanderer from his forest possessions 
never to return. Lydius afterward went to England, where 
he died in 1791, in the ninety-ninth year of his age. In 
a biographical notice of him, published in the London 
Gentleman's Magazine of that year, he is styled the " Baron 
de Quade, Governor of Fort Edward." 

In the year 1749, the ruins of his settlement, and of old 
Fort Nicholson, were visited by the famous Swedish botan- 
ist, Peter Kalm, while on his tour through the American 
wilds in the interest of science. Of these ruins he gives a 
graphic description in the story of his journeyings. 



THE COUNTY OF CHARLOTTE. 267 

Again, in the last French war, which began in 1755 and 
ended with the final conquest of Canada in 1759, and the 
peace of 1763, the Great Carrying Place became the scene 
of important military operations. In 1755 Fort Lyman 
was built on the site of old Fort Nicholson. The next 
year its name was changed to Fort Edward, in honor of 
Prince Edward, Duke of York. 

Again, in the war of the Revolution, Fort Edward be- 
comes an important military station, but at the close of that 
war the military prestige of the Great Carrying Place leaves 
it forever. Yet no event in its long military history pos- 
sesses half the tragic interest which attaches to the murder 
of poor Jeanie McCrea there by the Indians under Bur- 
goyne, in the early morning of Sunday, the 27th of July, 
1777. But her story has been so often told that I need not 
repeat it here. 

To-day the modern village of Fort Edward stands on 
this classic ground, made famous by a century of forest 
warfare, and almost a hundred years of smiling peace 
have passed over the old Carrying Place of the wilderness. 
The old fort at the mouth of the creek, the barracks on 
the island in the mid-river, the Royal Block-house upon 
the south bank of the river, have crumbled into ruins, and for 
a hundred summers save one the sweet wild flowers have 
bloomed over the grave of Jeanie McCrea, the one maiden 
martyr of the American cause, whose innocent blood, cry- 
ing from the ground, aroused her almost despairing country- 
men to renewed effort, to vengeance, and to final victory 
over the invader at whose hands her young life was ended. 



268 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

III. 

SKENESBOROUGH. 

Major Philip Skene, the founder of Skenesborough, now 
Whitehall, at the head of Lake Champlain, was of noble 
lineage, and some of the best blood of Scotland coursed 
through his veins. His fraternal grandmother was the 
Lady Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Wallace, a des- 
cendant of the unfortunate William Wallace, of patriot and 
soldier memory, 

Philip Skene entered the British army in 1739, ^^^ ^^^ 
mained in the service until the year 1782. During these 
forty-three years of soldier life, he was a participator in 
many a scene of carnage, both in the Old World and in the 
New. His regiment accompanied the British expedition 
against the Spanish-American province of New Granada, 
and he was at the taking of Puerto Belle in 1739, and en- 
gaged in the unsuccessful seige of Carthagena in 1741. 
Returning to the battle-fields of Europe, he was one of the 
fourteen thousand who made the daring but disastrous 
charge led by the Duke of Cumberland through the bloody 
ravine of Fontenoy in Belgium, on the nth of May, 1745, 
and the following year, with his regiment, met successfully 
the terrible onslaught of the infuriated Highlanders upon 
the bloody field of Drummossie Moor, near Culloden 
House, on the i6th of April, in the rebellion of 1746. In 
1747 he was at the battle of Lafeldt, where the Duke of 
Cumberland was again beaten by Marshal Saxe. In the 
year 1756 he came to America, and on the 2d of February 
in that year was promoted, by Lord Loudon, to the com- 
mand of a company in the 27th, or Inniskillen, regiment of 



THE COUNTY OF CHARLOTTE. 269 

foot. He was engaged in the bloody assault by Gen. Aber- 
crombie upon Fort Carrillon, at Ticonderoga, in July, 1758, 
where he was wounded, and on the 31st of July, 1759, was 
raised to the rank of brigade major by Gen. Amherst. In 
October following he was left in command of the British 
garrison at Crown Point and Ticonderoga, and was induced 
by Gen. Amherst, in 1 761, to project a settlement in the 
wilderness at what is now Whitehall. But his soldier life 
was not yet ended, for in 1762 he was ordered on the ex- 
pedition, under Lord Albemarle, against Martinique and 
Havana, and at the storming of Moro Castle was the first 
man to enter the breach made in its walls by the British 
guns. 

Returning once more to northern New York, Philip 
Skene found his infant settlement of Skenesborough reduc- 
ed to fifteen souls, and, retiring from the army under half- 
pay, at once began its re-establishment. He first, went to 
England, and obtained from the Crown, in 1765, the grant 
of a large tract of land, containing some twenty-five thou- 
sand acres, lying on both sides of Wood Creek. Upon this 
tract he began his improvements. He built for himself, in 
1770, a stone mansion house and a large stone building one 
hundred and thirty feet long, which was used for military 
purposes. He also erected a stone forge, and began the 
manufacture of iron. He owned a sloop on the lake, with 
which in summer he kept up a regular communication with 
Montreal. He cut a road through the forest at his own 
expense, a distance of thirty miles, to Salem, for use in the 
winter. In 1773 there were seventy families in the settle- 
ment of Skenesborough, and a population of 379 persons, 
including forty or more negro slaves brought by Skene from 



270 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

Havana. But Skene had a still more ambitious project in 
view. This was no less than the founding of a new royal 
province out of the then disputed territory of Vermont and 
of northern New York, of which he was to be the Governor. 
But the war of the Revolution soon coming on put an end 
both to his flourishing settlement and to his ambitious 
scheme of founding a new royal province in the old wilder- 
ness. 

Skenesborough was in the line of the old war-path that 
ran through the great northern valley. Skene espoused the 
royal cause, and, in May, 1775, the Americans took posses- 
sion of his house, and he became a fugitive from his settle- 
ment, never to return. In 1776 an American garrison Was 
stationed there, and upon the retreat of the Americans in 
1777 before Burgoyne, its fort was blown up, its buildings 
all burned, and the place was left in utter ruins. Major 
Skene rejoined the British service, served under Lord Howe 
in New York, joined the expedition of Burgoyne, took part 
in all the battles of the campaign, and became a prisoner 
of war at the surrender of Saratoga. After the war his es- 
tates in America were all confiscated, and returning to Scot- 
land, his native country, he died there in the year 1810, 
at an advanced age. 

Such are the main incidents in the eventful career of 
Philip Skene, who was styled in an obituary notice " Lieut. - 
Governor of Crown Point and Ticonderoga, and Surveyor 
of his Majesty's Woods and Forests bordering on Lake 
Champlain," and who was one of the most famous pioneers 
of the Champlain valley, and the founder of another of the 
frustrated settlements of the old wilderness. To-day, the 
modern village of Whitehall, disputing with her rival sisters 



THE COUNTY OF CHARLOTTE. 27 I 

the supremacy of the beautiful valley of the "Lake of the 
Iroquois," occupies the site of the ruined colony of Skene. 

IV. 

THE NEW ARGYLESHIRE. 

The Isle of Islay was in ancient times famous as the 
home of the Lords of the Isles. It is the most southerly 
of the Hebrides, and is situate fifteen miles off the coast 
of Argyleshire, Scotland. To the clan Campbell, to which 
the Duke of Argyle belongs, also belonged, about the year 
1737, a Highland chieftain whose name was Laughlin 
Campbell. Like the Duke, he was a descendant of the 
Lords of the Isles, and was the owner of large landed pos- 
sessions in the Isle of Islay. 

About this time, a proclamation was issued by the gov- 
ernor of the Province of New York, and circulated in 
Scotland, offering liberal inducements to and inviting "loyal 
protestant Highlanders " to come and settle on the wild 
lands bordering the easterly side of the upper Hudson, 
between Saratoga and Lake Champlain. Attracted by this 
proclamation, Capt. Laughlin Campbell, in the year 1737, 
visited this country. He traversed the lands, and was 
pleased with the soil and situation. The Indians whom he 
met, admiring his athletic form, and delighted with the gay 
colors of his tartan costume, invited him to settle in their 
country. Lieut. -Governor Clarke, the acting governor of 
the province, also urged him to come, and, as an induce- 
ment, offered him a grant of thirty thousand acres free from 
all charges save those of the survey and the King's quit- 
rents. Thus allured, Capt. Campbell returned to Scotland, 






272 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

sold his lands in the Isle of Islay, and gathering a company 
of eighty-three families of protestant Highlanders, com- 
prising in all, of adults and children, more than five hun- 
dred souls, set sail for America to settle the howling wilder- 
ness. 

On the eve of their departure, Capt. Campbell and the 
principal heads of families were met by the Duke of Argyle 
in council, and a plan of settlement was agreed upon in 
conformity to the advice of the Duke. 

But these adventurers from the Hebrides were destined 
to long delays, bitter disappointments, and many sad calam- 
ities before they reached the goal for- which they aimed. 
Upon the arrival of Capt. Campbell and his band of immi- 
grants in New York, the governor and surveyor-general, 
incited by the love of gain, refused to make out to him the 
promised conveyance of the thirty thousand acres, except 
upon payment of their usual exorbitant fees therefor, and 
then only on condition that Campbell would allow them a 
share in the grant. Laughlin Campbell was a man of too 
much spirit to be thus dishonestly imposed upon, and utter- 
ly refused to accept the grant upon such unexpected con- 
ditions. The governor then pathetically appealed to the 
assembly to grant "these poor strangers," as he styled them, 
the gift of seven pounds to each family to enable them to 
settle their lands. But the assembly, justly suspicious that 
this money would all find its way into the pockets of the 
avaricious governor for his fees, refused the grant. Thus 
all hopes of building up a new Argyleshire on the banks 
of the Hudson by these people, were cruelly dispelled, 
and they hardly knew where their wives and little ones 
could find daily bread, unless the ravens fed them. Some 



THE COUNTY OF CHARLOTTE. 273 

of them enlisted in the expedition then fitting out in the 
harbor of New York against the Spanish West Indies, and 
died of the pestilence in the harbor of Carthagena. The 
others separated themselves, and wandering from the city 
found homes among the Dutch settlers of the river counties 
above New York. In a few years, Capt. Campbell, failing 
to obtain his grant upon any reasonable terms, died broken- 
hearted, leaving a widow and six children almost penniless. 
At length, in 1763, after twenty-five years of tedious 
waiting, the heirs of Capt. Campbell received a grant of ten 
thousand acres, which embraced nearly a third of the pre- 
sent town of Greenwich, Washington county. The next 
year, 1764, a grant was also made of 47,450 acres to the colo- 
nists who came over with Campbell, and had been so cruelly 
disappointed as to their possessions in the New World. 
By the instrument of conveyance the tract was also erected 
into the township of Argyle. Thus were the long-deferred 
hopes of these settlers about to be realized, and dazzling 
visions of the future iniportance of their township and of 
their own wealth as land-owners arose at once before them. 
They at once proceeded to devise on paper a plan of their 
township like the one projected for them by the Duke of 
Argyle on the eve of their departure from old Argyleshire. 
An avenue seven miles long and twenty-four rods wide was 
laid out, passing through the center of the town, entirely 
across it, from east to west. This magnificent avenue was 
called "The Street," a name by which it is still well known. 
Along this avenue a village lot was laid out for each inhabi- 
tant, twenty-two rods front, and reaching back one hundred 
and seventy-five rods, while in the rear the remainder of 
the town was divided into large " farm lots " of several 
35 



2 74 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

hundred acres each for every inhabitant. In strict accord- 
ance with this plan, which appeared so well on paper, the 
survey was made, and the "darling Street" was laid out. 
Yet in the actual survey it crossed many a craggy bluff and 
steep hillside, that never could be worked, or used for 
travelling purposes. In a short time many of them moved 
upon their lands, and commenced their little clearings in 
the grim old forest. Such is the origin of the modern town 
of Argyle. 

Like the children of Israel wandering with Moses in the 
desert, seeking Palestine for forty years, these children of 
the Hebrides, after wandering for twenty-five years in the 
wilderness, also found their promised land, and their leader, 
Laughlin Campbell, like Moses, never reached it, but only 
saw its sunny slopes from some far-off mountain peak. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

OSWEGO AND THE WESTERN WAR-PATH. 

It is over. What is over ? 

Nay how much is over truly ? 
Harvest days we toiled to sow for ; 

Now the sheaves are gathered newly — 

Now the wheat is garnered duly. 

— Christina Rossetti. 

I. 
SWA-GEH. 

The city of Oswego sits at the mouth of the river of the 
same name on the south-eastern shore of Lake Ontario, the 
"Beautiful Lake" of the Iroquois, the long silent guns of 
her protecting fort overlooking its peaceful waters. Her 
harbor is filled with the teeming commerce of the great 
lakes, which seeks through her ports an outlet overland to 
the Atlantic seaboard, and her shipping and railroad in- 
terests are among the most important in the land. This is 
the Oswego of to-day. But her authentic history runs back 
for more than two hundred years, into the legendary lore 
of the Oswego, the Indian Swa-geh, of the olden time, the 
famous lake-port of the populous Iroquois cantons of west- 
ern New York. The Indians, in all their journeyings 
through the wilderness, made their trails along the water 
courses. They threaded the winding streams with their 
frail bark canoes for hundreds of miles, carrying them on 
their backs around the numerous falls and rapids. To each 
end of these carrying places, and to all the points where they 
reached some large stream or some lake, they gave signifi- 
cant names. Many of these ancient names are still retained, 
and among them is Os-we-go, the lake port of the Iroquois. 



2/6 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

II. 

THE WESTERN WAR-TRAIL. 

In colonial times, between Albany on the Hudson and 
the Canadian cities in the valley of the St. Lawrence, there 
were two great routes of travel over which the old war- 
trails ran. One of these was the great northern route, 
running up the Hudson and down the Champlain valley, 
and the other was the western trail, which ran up the Mo- 
hawk valley, through Oneida Lake, and down the Oswego 
River to Lake Ontario. 

The first carrying place on the great western route was 
from the Hudson at Albany through the pine woods to the 
Mohawk at Schenectady. This carrying place avoided the 
Ga-ha-oose Falls. At the terminus of the old Indian carry- 
ing place on the Hudson, now called Albany, the Dutch, 
under Hendrick Christiensen, in 1614, built Fort Nassau on 
Castle Island. This island was situate on the east side of 
the river, a little below the city, and after 1630 was known 
as Patroon's Island. It has long since been joined with 
the mainland, and lost in the improvements made on that 
side of the river. In 161 7 they built another fort at the 
mouth of the Normanskill, at the old Indian Ta-wa-sent-ha 
— "the place of the many dead." In 1623 Fort Orange was 
built by Adriaen Joris, and eighteen families built their bark 
huts and spent there the coming winter. In 1630 Kilian 
van Rensselaer, a rich diamond merchant of Holland, the 
original patroon, sent over his colonists, the Manor of 
Rensselaerwyck was founded, and a little fur trading station 
grew up under the guns of Fort Orange, which has since 
developed into the modern city of Albany. The Mohawk 



OSWEGO AND THE WESTERN WAR-PATH. 277 

name for Albany was Ska-neh-ia-de, meaning " the place 
beyond the pine openings." 

In the year 1662, Arendt van Curler, and other inhabi- 
tants of Fort Orange, "went west" across the old carry 
through the pines to the rich Mohawk flats and founded a 
settlement. To this settlement they applied the old Indian 
name of Albany, calling it Schenectady. From Albany it 
was the new settlement on the Mohawk beyond the pines. 
The true Indian name for Schenectady was 0-no-a-la-gone- 
na, meaning "pained in the head." 

From Schenectady the western trail ran up the Mohawk 
to what is now the city of Rome, where there was another 
carry of a mile in length, to the Wood Creek which flows 
into Oneida Lake. This carrying place, afterward the site 
of Fort Stanwix, was called by the Indians Da-ya-hoo-wa- 
quat. From it the old trail ran through the Oneida Lake, 
and down the Oswego River to Lake Ontario. At the 
mouth of the Oswego River, on Lake Ontario, was the old 
Indian village called Swa-gc/i, the lake-port of the Iro- 
quois. 

From Swa-ge/i westward the navigation was unobstructed 
for almost a thousand miles through the great lakes to the 
old Indian Chik-ah-go, (Chicago) which was situate at the 
eastern end of the trail wliich led from the great lakes 
westward to the Indian Me-cJie-se-pa "the mysterious river, 
the Father of Waters toward the setting sun." 



278 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

III. 

OSWEGO. 

For a period of one hundred and eighty years, from its 
earliest settlement in 1614 up to the end of the last French 
war, the chief business of Albany was dealing in furs and 
peltries with the Indians of the North and West. But the 
French at Montreal and Quebec at length began to divert 
the western fur trade, and it became necessary for the mer- 
chants of Albany to adopt measures to retain it. So, in 1720, 
the citizens of Albany pushed boldly out on the old western 
trail to Swa-ge/i, on Lake Ontario, and established a fur 
trading station there upon what the French claimed was 
their territory. The importance of this measure will be 
readily seen, for Swa-geh commanded the fur trade of the 
great West. Swa-geh thus became the lake-port for Albany 
as well as for the cantons of the Iroquois. 

As early as the year 1700 Col. Romer, after making a 
careful exploration of the country of the Five Nations, 
mentioned Swa-geh as an important station on Lake Ontario 
for the prosecution of the fur trade with the Indians of the 
great West. But it was not until 17 21 that Swa-geh was 
occupied by the English, and not till 1727 that Gov. Burnet 
built a fort there and it was called Oswego. In a letter to 
the Board of Trade by Gov. Burnet, dated May 9th, 1727, 
he says: "I have this spring sent up workmen to build a 
stone house of strength at a place called Oswego, at the 
mouth of the Onnondaga River, where our principal trade 
with the Five Nations is carried on." This building was 
eighty feet square, and of great strength. In 1744, at the 
beginning of the French and Indian war of that date, it 



OSWEGO AND THE WESTERN WAR-PATH. 279 

was mounted with cannon transported with much toil from 
Albany up the wild valley of the Mohawk. 

In 1756 Oswego was the northern rendezvous of Gen. 
Shirley, with fifteen hundred men, on his expedition against 
the French forts Frontenac and Niagara. From this 
period Oswego became an important military post on the 
northern frontier, and an object of jealousy to the French. 
At length it was attacked in 1757 by five thousand men 
under Gen. Montcalm, and captured after a gallant resist- 
ance on the part of its garrison. On retiring from Oswego, 
Montcalm left it a heap of ruins, but in 1758 Gen. Brad- 
street appeared upon the scene with his army of three thou- 
sand three hundred and forty men, on his march against 
Fort Frontenac, and soon rebuilt the decaying fort. After 
the close of the last French and Indian war, Oswego was 
occupied by an English garrison until the year 1798, when 
it was abandoned to the Americans. 



IV. 

OLD FORTS ON THE WESTERN WAR-PATH. 

Up to the end of the last French and Indian war, Albany 
and Schenectady were strongly fortified and surrounded by 
palisades. They were as much walled cities as those of 
mediaeval times in Europe. In Albany a huge frowning fort 
called Fort Frederick, bristling with cannon, filled up State 
street a little below where the Capitol now stands, its north- 
east bastion resting on the ground now occupied by St. 
Peter's church. At Schenectady was a wooden fort ib the 
line of palisades which surrounded the village, with four 
block-houses as flankers. Between Schenectady and Swa- 



28o NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

geh was a line of forts built for the protection of the travel- 
ing fur-traders, and as barriers to French and Indian in- 
vasion from the valley of the St. Lawrence. The first of 
these was at the mouth of the Schohariekill, and was called 
Fort Hunter. It was built on the site of old Indian Tc- 
hon-de-lo-ga, the lower castle of the Mohawks. x\bove Fort 
Hunter, near the Indian Ga-no-Jo-hi-e — "washing the basin " 
— the middle Mohawk castle, was Fort Plain. The Indian 
name of Fonda was Ga-na-wa-da — meaning "over the 
rapids." Of Little Falls, it was Ta-la-que-ga — "small 
bushes," and of Herkimer the Indian name was Te-uge-ga, 
the same as the river. At Herkimer was Hendrick's castle 
and Fort Herkimer, near Ga-ne-ga-ha-ga, the upper Mo- 
hawk castle. 

The Indian name for Utica was Nun-da-da-sis — meaning 
"around the hill." At Utica, the Indian trail from the west 
crossed the river. To defend this ford of the Mohawk at 
Utica, a small earth-work was built in 1756, and named Fort 
Schuyler. From the little settlement began at this old fort 
Utica has become the queen city of the Mohawk valley. 
The territory upon which the city of Utica has been built 
was granted in 1734 to Gov. Cosby, and was long known in 
colonial annals as "Cosby's Manor." 

K little above Utica was a small Indian station called 
Ok-hisk — "the place of nettles." This is now Oriskany, 
one of the famous battle-grounds of the Revolution. At 
the carrying place between the Mohawk River and Wood 
Creek was the Indian Da-ya-hoo-wa-quat^ meaning "the 
carrying place." Here Fort Williams was built in 1732, and 
on its site, in 175S, was built Fort Stanwix. During the 
Revolutionary war the name Fort Stanwix was changed to 



OSWEGO and the western WAR-PATH. 28 I 

Fort Schuyler, and should not be mistaken for the little 
fort at Utica of that name. At Wood Creek, a mile from 
Fort Stanwix, Fort Bull was built in 1737. 

At the mouth of Wood Creek, on the Oneida Lake, a 
Royal Block-house was built, and at the west end of Oneida 
Lake, in 1758, Fort Brewerton was built. The Indian name 
for Wood Creek was Ka-7ie-go-dick; for Oneida Lake was 
Ga-no-a-lo-hole — " head on a pole." For Syracuse the Indian 
name was Na-ta-du7ik^ meaning "pine-tree broken with top 
hanging down," and the Indian name of Fort Brewerton 
was Ga-do-quat. Fort Brewerton, the remains of which may 
still be seen from the railroad track, was an octagonal pali- 
saded fort of about three hundred and fifty feet in diameter. 
After the close of the French war, and during Pontiac's 
war, Fort Brewerton was commanded by Capt. Mungo 
Campbell, of the 55th Highlanders. Mrs. Grant, of Laggan, 
in her Memoirs of an American Lady, gives an interesting 
description of this fort, which she visited while on her 
way to Oswego about the year 1763. 

At the falls on the Oswego River, (now Fulton) Gen. 
Bradstreet built a small stockaded fort in 1758, and garrison- 
ed it with one hundred men. In 1755, a new fort was 
built at Oswego by Col. Mercer. This fort is now known 
as Fort Ontario. 

Such was the line of defences bristling along the old 
western war-path between Albany and Oswego at the close 
of the last French and Indian war. For a hundred years 
this old western trail was the pathway of contending 
armies, its streams were often crimsoned with blood, and its 
wild meadows filled with nameless graves. 

36 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

SARATOGA AND THE NORTHERN WAR-PATH. 

She stood beside the well her God had given 
To gush in that deep wilderness, and bathed 
The forehead of her child until he laughed 
In his reviving happiness. * * * 

— Willis. 

I. 

INDIAN SARATOGA. 

Among the earliest dates in which the name Saratoga ap- 
pears in history is the year 1684. It was then not the name 
of a town, nor of a county, nor of a great watering place, 
but it was the name of an old Indian hunting ground situat- 
ed along both sides of the Hudson River. The Hudson, 
after it breaks through its last mountain barrier above 
Glens Falls, for many miles of its course runs through a 
wider valley. After winding for a while through this wider 
valley, it reaches the first series of its bordering hills, and 
this old hunting ground was situate where the outlying hills 
begin to crowd down to the river banks. In the Indian 
tongue it was significantly called Se-rach-ta-gue, meaning 
" the hillside country of the great river.* 

It also has been said Saratoga, in the Indian language, 
means the "place of the swift water," in allusion to the 
rapids and falls that break the stillness of the stream where 
this hillside country begins on the river. f 

An Indian whose name was 0-ron-hia-tck-Jia of Caugh- 

*Steele's Analysis, p. 13. 

f Vide Judge Scott's historical address at Ballston Spa, July 4th, 1876, 
also. Reminiscences of Saratoga, by Wm. L. Stone, p. 5. 



SARATOCA AND THE NORTHERN WAR-PATH. 283 

na-wa-ga on the St. Lawrence, who was well acquainted 
with the Mohawk dialect, informed Dr. Hough, the his- 
torian, that Saratoga was from Sa-ra-ia-ke, meaning "a 
place where the track of the heel may be seen," in allusion 
to a spot near by, where depressions like foot-prints may be 
seen in the rocks. Yet Morgan, in his League of the Iro- 
quois, says the signification of Saratoga is lost. 

But whether its meaning be this, that, or the other, I am 
sure that it is gratifying to us all that this famous summer 
resort, situate as it is on American soil, bears an American 
name. 

As early as 1684, this hillside country of the Hudson, 
the ancient Indian Se-rach-ia-gue, was sold by the Mohawk 
sachems to Peter Philip Schuyler and six other eminent 
citizens of Albany, and the Indian grant confirmed by the 
English government. This old hunting ground then be- 
came known in history as the Saratoga patent. As set forth 
in the Indian deed and described in the letters patent, it 
was a territory of fifteen miles in length along the river 
and six miles in width on both sides. It reached from the 
Di-on-on-da-Jio-wa, now the Battenkill, near Fort Miller, on 
the north, to the Ta-iien-da-ho-tua, now the Anthony's kill, 
near Mechanicville, on the south. The towns of old Sara- 
toga and Stillwater on the west side of the river, and the 
town of Easton (the east town) on the east side of the 
river, are within the bounds of this ancient patent. This 
was Saratoga of the olden time, called on some old maps 
So-roc-to-gos land. 

In the year 1687, three years after the Mohawks had sold 
this hunting ground, and the patent had been granted. Gov. 
Dongan of New York attempted to induce a band of 



284 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

Christian Iroquois that the French missionaries had led to 
Cach-na-oua-ga on the St. Lawrence, to return and settle in 
ancient Se-rach-ta-gue. This was done to form a barrier 
between the then frontier town of Albany and the hostile 
French and Indians on the north. Some of the descend- 
ants of these Indians still make an annual pilgrimage to the 
springs, and encamping in the groves near by, form an in- 
teresting part of the great concourse of summer visitors. 

It will be seen, however, that the ground on which the 
village of Saratoga Springs is built, and the region in which 
the famous mineral springs were found, formed no part of 
the old hunting ground and patent of Saratoga. The So- 
roe-to-gos land of the olden time lay along both sides of the 
Hudson, and extended no further west than Saratoga lake. 

II. 

KAY-AD-ROS-SE-RA. 

The Indian name for the territory in which the famous 
mineral springs were found was Kay-ad-ros-se-ra* 

Like Saratoga, it was one of the favorite hunting grounds 
of the Iroquois. It lay in the angle between the two great 
rivers, to the south of a line drawn from Glens Falls on the 
Hudson westerly to near Amsterdam on the Mohawk. 
Kay-ad-ros-se-ra means in the Indian tongue, the "lake 
country." Its principal lake, now Lake Saratoga, was the 
Lake Kay-ad-ros-se-ra of the Mohawks, and its largest 
stream the Kay-ad-ros-se-ra river. On the old French maps 
Saratoga Lake is called Cap-i-a-qui. The Indian name for 
Round Lake, now famous as a camp-meeting ground, was 
Ta-nen-da-ho-wa. 
* So written in Claude Joseph Sauthier's map of 1779. 



I 



SARATOGA AND THE NORTHERN WAR-PATH. 285 

The forests of ancient Kay-ad-ros-se-ra were full of game, 
and its lakes and streams swarmed with fish. The herring 
ran up the west side of the Hudson, and through Fish 
Creek, giving rise to its name, into Lake Saratoga in im- 
mense numbers. The shad ran up the east side of the 
river, and lay in vast schools in the falls and rapids above 
and below Fort Edward. The sturgeon frequented the 
"sprouts" of the Mohawk, and sunned themselves in the 
basin below Cohoes falls. 

The wild animals of Kay-ad-ros-se-ra were attracted in 
immense numbers by the saline properties of the mineral 
springs that bubbled up in its deepest shades, all unknown 
save to them and its Indian owners. In this "paradise of 
sportsmen " the Mohawks and their nearer sister tribes of 
the Iroquois, the Oneidas and Onondagas, and sometimes 
the further off Cayugas and Senecas, every summer built 
their hunting lodges around its springs, and on the banks 
of its lakes and rivers. It will be seen that ancient wild 
Kay-ad-ros-se-ra was as famous in the old time to the red 
man as modern Saratoga is to-day to the white man. 

The first grant made by the Mohawks of any part of 
Kay-ad-ros-se-ra bears date the 26th of August, 1702. In 
this deed the Indians sold to David Schuyler and Robert 
Livingston, Jr., a tract of land lying on the west bank of 
the Hudson, above the Saratoga patent, running up as far 
as the Great Carrying Place, (Fort Edward) "and west- 
ward into the woods as far as their property belongs." In 
the spring following, Samson Shelton Broughton, attorney 
general of the province, obtained a license from the gov- 
ernor in behalf of himself and company to purchase from 
the Indians a tract of land known by the Indian name of 



I 



286 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

Kay-ad-ros-sc-ra. This license is dated April 22, 1703. In 
pursuance of this license, a purchase was effected of Kay- 
ad-ros-se-ra^ and an Indian deed given the 6th of October, 
1704, signed by the sachems of the tribe. At length a re- 
lease was obtained from David Schuyler and Robert Livings- 
ton, Jr., of their title acquired by the deed of the 26th of 
August, 1702, and on the 2d day of November, 1708, a 
patent was granted by Queen Anne to "her loving subjects 
Nanning Hermance, Johannes Beekman, Rip van Dam," 
and ten others, of the whole of Kay-ad-ros-se-ra. Yet it 
was not until the year 1768 that the deed given by the In- 
dian sachems in 1704 was confirmed by the tribe, and then 
only through the powerful influence of Sir William John- 
son. 

The sachems said they were told by the agents of the 
purchasers that the description in the deed covered only 
" land enough for a good sized farm," and that they never 
intended by it to convey to the whites " for a {t\^ baubles," 
their great hunting ground containing half a million acres. 
After more than sixty years of fruitless quarrels over this 
old title, the Indians had grown weak and the whites had 
grown strong, and it is the old story, the weaker gave up to 
the stronger. 

On the 24th day of March, 1772, three years before the 
war of the Revolution broke out, and about the time the 
first white settler was building his rude cabin at the Springs, 
these two patents of Kay-ad-ros-se-ra and Saratoga were 
united by the colonial government into a district. The 
name Kay-ad-ros-se-ra was dropped, and the district was 
named after the smaller patent, and called the District of 
Saratoga. The old hunting ground, the beautiful lake and 



I 



SARATOGA AND THE NORTHERN WAR-PATH. 287 

the famous springs of Kay-ad-ros-se-ra have, since the Act 
of the 24th of March, 1772, all borne the name of Saratoga. 
Since then the grand old Indian name Kay-ad-ros-se-ra, 
so far as territory is concerned, has fallen out of human 
speech, and is only heard in connection with the principal 
stream and mountain chain of the great hunting ground so 
famous in Indian story. 

III. 

THE NORTHERN WARPATH. 

The territory which now comprises the county of Sara- 
toga lay in the angle between two great pathways, one from 
the north, the other from the west. And lying as it did in 
the angle of the war trails, it became the battle ground of 
nations. Whoever possessed it was master of the situation 
and held the door of the country. For the hundred and 
seventy years in which its authentic history runs back, be- 
fore the close of the war of the Revolution, there was 
scarcely an hour of peaceful rest unbroken by the fear of 
the savage invader in this battle ground of Saratoga, in this 
angle between the great northern and western war trails. 

In previous chapters the reader has already been apprised 
of some of the main incidents in this long warfare down to 
the return of the Marquis de Tracy's expedition to the 
Mohawk country in the war of 1666, after which there was 
a comparative peace for twenty years. 

Again in 1686, after these twenty years of peace were 
ended, the French and Indian war broke out afresh, and 
lasted through nine weary years to the peace of 1695. Dur- 
ing this period of nine years, numerous war parties passed 
through Kay-ad-ros-se-ra and Saratoga on their way to and 



288 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

from the hostile settlements on the St. Lawrence and the 
Mohawk and lower Hudson. In the month of August, 
1689, nine hundred Mohawk warriors passed over the old 
trail that led across the Greenfield hills, which twenty-three 
years before had been trodden by the victorious Tracy with 
his veteran soldiers and train of French noblemen. During 
the twenty years' peace these wild savages had been nursing 
their wrath, and now their hour of sweet revenge had come. 
Launching their bark canoes, they swept down though 
Lakes George and Champlain, and landing on the island of 
Montreal, like so many ravening wolves, carried the war to 
the very gates of the French forts on the St. Lawrence. 

Six months later, in February, 1690, Lieut. Le Moyne de 
St. Helene passed up Lake Champlain and down the Hud- 
son, on snow shoes, and traversing Lake Saratoga upon the 
ice, and winding up the Kay-ad-ros-se-ra river and the 
Mourningkill to the little hamlet, now below Ballston, called 
East Line, passed over Ballston Lake, and in the dead of 
the night of the 9th of February, swept down upon the 
sleeping inhabitants of Schenectady with indiscriminate 
slaughter. 

On his hasty return, Lieut, de St. Helene was followed 
by Major Peter Schuyler, at the head of a company of two 
hundred whites and a band of Mohawks, as far as Lake 
Champlain, and fifteen French prisoners were taken and 
brought back to the Mohawk castles. 

And now we come during these nine years of war to the 
first of those military expeditions that were undertaken 
upon a large scale by the English colonies for the conquest 
of Canada, which passing through Old Saratoga, made it a 
place of note in the annals of savage warfare. 



SARATOGA AND THE NORTHERN WAR-PATH. 289 

On the ist day of May, 1690, the first American Congress 
met at the old fort in the city of New York. In pursuance 
of its recommendations, a joint expedition of the colonies 
was planned and fitted out for the conquest of Canada, the 
command of which was given to General Fitz John Win- 
throp of Connecticut. 

. On the 14th day of July, 1690, Gen. Winthrop, with the 
New England troops, left Hartford, and passing through a 
virgin wilderness, whose interminable shades were broken 
only by the little settlements at and near Albany, arrived at 
Stillwater on the first of August. 

Stillwater was " so named," says the old chronicler, "be- 
cause the water passes so slowly as not to be discovered, 
while above and below it is disturbed, and rageth as in a 
great sea occasioned by rocks and falls therein." 

On the day after, he arrived at Sar-agh-to-ga, near where 
Schuylerville now is. Here at Saratoga he found a block- 
house and some Dutch troops under Major Peter Schuyler, 
mayor of x^lbany, who had preceded him with the New 
York forces. From this date, the second day of August, 
1690, six years after the old patent was granted, and almost 
two centuries ago, Saratoga takes its place among the long 
list of our country's geographical names. 

Major Schuyler had already pushed up to the second 
carrying place, now Fort Miller Falls, where he had stopped 
to build some bark canoes. The next and third carrying 
place above was from the Hudson at Fort Edward to what 
is now Fort Ann, on Wood Creek. This portage ran 
through a magnificent grove of pines for twelve miles, and 
was known in old forest annals as the " Great Carrying 
Place." 
37 



290 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

This expedition proved an utter failure. Before its re- 
turn, however, Capt. John Schuyler, brother of the mayor, 
and grandfather of Gen. Philip Schuyler of revolutionary 
memory, pressed on down Lake Champlain, and made his 
famous raid upon the Canadian settlement of La Prairie. 

In the next year, 1691, Major Peter Schuyler, at the head 
of two hundred and sixty whites and eighty Mohawks from 
their camp at Saratoga Lake, following in the track of his 
brother, made another descent upon the doomed settlement 
of La Prairie. 

To retaliate these injuries, Comt de Frontenac, Governor 
General of Canada resolved to strike a blow upon the Mo- 
hawk settlements. Accordingly, in January, 1693, he sent 
a force of six hundred and twenty-five men, including Li- 
dians, who passed down over the old trail that led from 
Lake George to the bend of the Hudson above Glens Falls, 
and from thence through Wilton, Greenfield, and along the 
brow of the Kay-ad-ros-se-ra range to the Mohawk castles. 
On its return march over this old trail, this war party was 
followed by Major Peter Schuyler and his forces, who over- 
took it in the town of Greenfield or Wilton, Saratoga 
county. 

Near the old Indian Pass over the Palmerstown range on 
the border of Wilton, almost if not t^uite in sight of Sara- 
toga Springs, in the month of February, 1693, a battle was 
fought, or rather a series of engagements took place, in 
which the French loss amounted in all to thirty-three killed 
and twenty-six wounded. At the conclusion of the fight 
the French retreated towards the Hudson. It had been 
thawing, and the ice was floating in the river. When the 
French arrived on its banks a large cake of ice had lodged 



SARATOGA AND THE NORTHERN WAR.rATH. 29 1 

in the bend of the stream. The French crossed over on 
this cake of ice in safety, but before their pursuers came up 
it had floated away, leaving them no means of crossing, and 
the chase was relinquished. This closes the record of the 
nine years' war from 1686 to 1695. From the year 1695 
until the year 1709, a period of fourteen years, peace again 
spread her white wings over the grim old wilderness along 
the great northern war-path. 

IV. 

THE WAR OF 1709. 

In the year 1709 the war known as Queen Anne's war 
broke out between England and France, and the warfare of 
the wilderness again began its savage butchery. In this 
war we come to the founding and construction of the mili- 
tary works in old Saratoga and along the great northern 
valley, which lasted unto comparatively modern times, and 
with whose names we have been so long familiar. 

In 1709 a joint expedition like that led by Gen. Winthrop 
in 1690, was planned for the conquest of Canada. In that 
year. Major Richard Ingoldesby, who had come over in 
command of the Queen's four companies of regulars, was 
lieutenant-governor of the province. Peter Philip Schuy- 
ler was now a colonel in the service, as well as one of the 
governor's council and a commissioner of Indian affairs, 
while his brother John had been advanced to the rank of 
lieutenant-colonel. The command of the expedition was 
given by Ingoldesby in May to Gen. Nicholson. 

About the 1st of June, Col. Schuyler, in command of the 
vanguard of the English forces, comprising three hundred 



292 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

men, including pioneers and artificers, moved out of Albany 
upon his northward march. At Stillwater, Colonel Schuy- 
ler halted his command, and built a small stockaded fort for 
provisions, which he named Fort Ingoldesby, in honor of 
the lieutenant-governor. Halting again at old Saratoga, 
where he had built a block house in 1690, and which in the 
meantime had become a little hamlet in the wilderness. Col. 
Schuyler built another stockaded fort. This fort was built 
on the east side of the Hudson, below the mouth of the 
Battenkill, on the hill nearly opposite the mouth of Fish 
Creek, and was known as Fort Saratoga. 

Proceeding up the river, Col. Schuyler built another fort 
at the second carrying place of Fort Miller Falls. From 
Fort Miller Falls Col. Schuyler built a military road along 
the east bank of the Hudson up to the Great Carrying 
Place. At the beginning of the Great Carrying Place on 
the Hudson, now Fort Edward, Col. Schuyler built another 
stockaded fort, which he named Fort Nicholson, in honor 
of the commanding general. Proceeding across the Great 
Carrying Place to the forks of Wood Creek, which runs into 
Lake Champlain, he built another stockaded fort, which 
was first called Fort Schuyler, but which two years later 
was named Fort Anne, in honor of the Queen. I need not 
follow the fortunes of this expedition to its failure and 
return. 

Two years later, in the year 17 11, another expedition in 
command of Gen. Nicholson left Albany on the 24th of 
August, and proceeding up the northern valley of the Hud- 
son, crossed the Great Carrying Place to Fort Anne. While 
there. Gen. Nicholson learned that her Majesty's fleet in the 
St. Lawrence, which was to co-operate with him in the con- 



SARATOGA AND THE NORTHERN WAR-PATH. 293 

quest of Quebec, had been shattered by storms with the loss 
of a thousand men. So he returned to Albany with all his 
forces, and the third expedition fitted out for the conquest 
of Canada proved, like the other two, a most mortifying 
failure. In 17 13, peace was again declared between Eng- 
land and France, which lasted until 1744, and for a period 
of thirty-one years there was peace along the great northern 
war-path. 

During this period of thirty-one years of quiet in the old 
wilderness, the French were not idle on Lake Champlain, 
neither were the Schuylers idle at their little settlement of 
Old Saratoga. In 1731, during this period of profound 
peace, the French built Fort St. Frederick, at Crown Point, 
on Lake Champlain. This fort soon became a menace and 
a terror to the people of the valley of the Upper Hudson. 
There grew up under its protecting guns a little French 
village of near fifteen hundred inhabitants, and the valley 
of Lake Champlain became as much a province of New- 
France as was the valley of the St. Lawrence. During this 
period of thirty-one years of peace, the landing place of 
Old Saratoga grew into a little forest hamlet containing some 
thirty houses and over one hundred inhabitants. 



V. 

THE WAR OF 1744. 

The war of 1744 found Saratoga, with its little tumble- 
down stockaded fort on the hill near by, the extreme north- 
ern outpost of the English settlements. There was but a 
single step, as it were, between it and the frowning walls of 
the French fort St. Frederick at Crown Point, from which 



294 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

a deadly blow might be expected at any moment. In No- 
vember, 1745, the blow came. At midnight on the 15th of 
November the sleeping inhabitants of Old Saratoga were 
awakened by the terrible war-whoop. The place was at- 
tacked by a force of three hundred French and Indians 
under the command of M. Marin. The fort and houses of 
the village were all burned to the ground. Of the inhabi- 
tants, thirty were killed and scalped, and sixty made pris- 
oners. 

The celebrated French missionary, Father Picquet, the 
founder, in 1749, of the mission and settlement La Presen- 
tation, at the mouth of the Oswegatchie, now Ogdensburgh, 
on the St. Lawrence, accompanied this expedition. 

During this short war no less than twenty-seven maraud- 
ing parties swept down from Fort St. Frederick at Crown 
Point upon the settlers of what are now Saratoga and Rens- 
selaer counties. It was the midnight war-whoop, the up- 
lifted tomahawk, the scalping knife, the burning dwelling, 
the ruined home, that made the whole country a scene of 
desolation and blood. 

In the spring of 1746 the English rebuilt and enlarged 
the Fort at Saratoga, and named it Fort Clinton, in honor 
of the governor of the Province. During the night of the 
17th of June, 1747, Fort Clinton at old Saratoga, was ap- 
proached by a band of French and Indians under the com- 
mand of La Corne St. Luc. While the main body of the 
French were lying in concealment near by, La Corne sent 
forward six scouts with orders to lie in ambush within eight 
paces of the fort, to fire upon those who should first come 
out of the fort the next morning, and if attacked, to retreat 
pretending to be wounded. At daybreak in the morning 



SARATOGA AND THE NORTHERN WAR-RATH. 295 

two Englishmen came out of the fort, and they were at 
once fired upon by the French scouts, who thereupon fled. 
Soon after the firing began, a hundred and twenty English- 
men came out of the fort, headed by their officers, and 
started in hot pursuit of the French scouts. The English 
soon fell in with the main body of the French, who, rising 
from their ambuscade, poured a galling fire into the Eng- 
lish ranks. The English at first bravely stood their ground 
and sharply returned the fire. The guns of the fort also 
opened upon the French with grape and cannon shot. But 
the Indians soon rushed upon the English with terrible 
yells, and with tomahawk in hand drove them into the fort, 
giving them scarcely time to shut the gates behind them. 
Many of the English soldiers, being unable to reach the 
fort, ran down the hill into the river, and were drowned or 
killed with the tomahawk. The Indians killed and scalped 
twenty-eight of the English, and took forty-five prisoners, 
besides those drowned in the river. 

In the autumn following this disaster, Fort Clinton of 
Saratoga was dismantled and burnt by the English, and 
Albany once more became the extreme northern outpost of 
the English colonies, with nothing but her palisaded walls 
between her and the uplifted tomahawks of the ever-frown- 
ing north. In May, 1748, peace was again proclaimed, 
which lasted for the brief period of seven years, until the 
beginning of the last French and Indian war of 1755, which 
ended in the conquest of Canada. 

During this short peace of seven years, the settler's axe 
was again heard upon many a hillside, as he widened his 
little clearing, and the smoke went curling gracefully up- 



296 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

ward from his lonely cabin in many a valley along the upper 
Hudson. 

It was in the summer of 1749, during this short peace, 
that Peter Kalm,* the Swedish botanist, traveled, in the 
interests of science, through this great northern war-path. 
He gives, in his account of the journey, a graphic descrip- 
tion of the ruins of the old forts at Saratoga, at Fort 
Nicholson and Fort Ann, which were then still remaining 
in the centres of small deserted clearings in the great wild- 
erness through which he passed. He made many discover- 
ies of rare and beautiful plants before unknown to Euro- 
peans, and in our swamps and lowlands a modest flower, the 
Kalmia glauca, swamp-laurel, blooms in perpetual remem- 
brance of his visit. But there were no mineral springs in 
the Saratoga visited by Peter Kalm. 

VI. 

THE WAR OF 1755- 

We now come to the stirring events of the last French 
and Indian war. This short war lasted only'four years, 
from 1755 to 1759, but during its continuance great armies 
marched through the old northern war-path, dyeing its 
streams with blood, and filling its wild meadows with thou- 
sands of nameless new-made graves, and at its close the 
sceptre of the French kings over the valleys of Lake Cham- 
plain and the St. Lawrence dropped from their hands for- 
ever. In this war the tide of battle moved northward, and 
settling around Lakes George and Champlain, passed be- 
yond the limits of Saratoga. 

* Vide Kalm's Trcavels, in Pinkerton, vol. 13. 



SARATOGA AND THE NORTHERN WAR-PATH. 297 

Space will hardly permit me to give more than the names 
of the vast armies — vast armies for those times and for 
those northern wilds — whose movements then made that 
fair scene the classic ground of our country's history. 

The first expedition was that uAder Sir William Johnson, 
who in the summer of 1755 took his position at the head 
of Lake St. Sacrament, changed its name to Lake George,* 
in honor of the English King and in token of his empire 
over it, and successfully defended it in the three bloody 
battles of the 8th of September with the French and In- 
dians, in command of the veteran French general, the 
Baron Dieskau. 

It was while on his way to Lake George, in the month of 
August, 1755, that Gen. Lyman halted his troops and built 
a fort in old Saratoga, at the mouth of Fish Creek, now 
Schuylerville, on the Hudson, and named it Fort Hardy, in 
honor of Sir Charles Hardy, the governor of New York. 
After the battle of the 8th of September, 1755, Sir William 
Johnson built Fort William Henry, at the head of Lake 
George, naming it in honor of the Duke of Cumberland. 

Of Gen. Winslow's fruitless expedition of 1756, during 
which he built Port Winslow, at Stillwater, in the place of 
Fort Ingoldesby, built by Col. Schuyler in 1709; of the 
campaign of 1757, in which Gen. Montcalm invested and 
destroyed Fort William Henry, at Lake George, whose sur- 
render was followed by the dreadful massacre of a part of 
its garrison by the Indians ; of the magnificent army led 

* Doc. His. of New York, Vol. I, p. 429 : " I am building a fort at 
this lake, which the French call Lake St. Sacrament, but I have given 
it the name of Lake George, not only in honor of his Majesty, but to 
ascertain his undoubted dominion here." — Sir William Johnson to Board 
of Trade, September 3d, 1775. 
38 



298 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

by Gen. Abercrombie, in 1758, against Fort Carillon, at 
Ticonderoga, into the jaws of slaughter and defeat, and of 
the final triumph of the English forces, under Gen. Am- 
herst, on Lake Champlain, and under Gen. Wolfe, at Que- 
bec, in 1759, I shall make but this passing mention.* 

The peace of 1763, between England and France, brought 
joy to the war worn inhabitants of the great northern val- 
ley. The hardy settlers, now that all fear of the northern 
invader was gone, left the banks of the rivers and the pro- 
tection of the forts, and began to push their way into the 
heart of the old wilderness, and with them came Dirk 
Schouten, the first white settler among the Indian wigwams 
near the High Rock spring, in the summer of 1773. 

Before we briefly trace the history of Schouten's little 
clearing, with its rude cabin, through its slow development 
into our modern village of Saratoga Springs, we must glance 
at some of the important events that occurred during the 
war of the American Revolution, and also notice the im- 
portant battles of that war, which, taking place on the soil 
of old Saratoga, have shed such lustre on her name. 

VII. 

CAMPAIGN OF 1777. 

In the campaign of 1777, Saratoga again became the bat- 
tle ground of the great northern valley. 

In the early summer of that year, Gen. Burgoyne, with 

the British army under his command, swept down from the 

north through the old war-path, driving everything before 

* See Silliman's Tour, Pouchot's Memoirs, Butler's Lake George and 
Lake Champlain, History of Queensbury, by Dr. A. W. Holden, and 
Narrative of Father Roubaud in Kip's Early Jesuit Missions. 



SARATOCxA AND THE NORTHERN WAR-PATH. 299 

hrm. On the 30th of June, at Crown Point, Burgoyne uses 
this striking language in his general orders to his army : 
" The army embarks to-morrow to approach the enemy. 
The services required of this particular expedition are 
critical and conspicuous. During our progress occasions 
may occur in which nor difficulty, nor labor, nor life, are to 
be regarded. This army must not retreat." On the 29th 
of July the British army arrived on the banks of the Hud- 
son at Fort Edward. About the same time the American 
forces under General Schuyler retreated down the Hudson, 
and made a stand on the islands at the mouth of the Mo- 
hawk, where the rude earthworks then thrown up by them 
can still be seen by the curious traveler as he rides near 
them and even over them in the cars of the Delaware and 
Hudson Canal Company's railroad. 

Before the middle of August, Burgoyne passed down the 
east side of the river to the Fort Miller Falls and the mouth 
of the Battenkill, where he remained for over a month, 
until he crossed the Hudson on the 13th and 14th of Sep- 
tember, and encamped on the heights of Saratoga, on his 
way to Bemis' Heights. 

On the 19th of August, Gen. Gates superseded Gen. 
Schuyler in the command of the northern army, and on the 
23d, Col. Morgan's regiment of riflemen arrived in the 
American camp from Virginia. 

It has always seemed to me that the removal of General 
Philip Schuyler from the command of our northern army, 
although at the time so loudly called for by the disaffected, 
and perhaps necessary to appease their clamor, was really 
an act of injustice to that distinguished son of New York, 
and that much of the brilliant success of that army in the 



300 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

end was due to the prudent plans and wise forethought of 
Gen. Schuyler. 

On the 8th of September, Gen. Gates marched his army 
up to Stillwater, and a day or two after went two miles 
further up the river and took up his position at Bemis' 
Heights. At Bemis' Heights the hills crowd down to the 
river bank, and leave only a narrow defile through which 
the great northern road runs up and down the valley. At 
the foot of the hill by the roadside near the bank of the 
river, stood a little tavern kept by one J. Bemis. His farm 
ran up over the hills back into the woods to the west of his 
tavern stand, and the hills were called after him Bemis' 
Heights. 

Gen. Gates took possession of this narrow defile on the 
river bank, and extending his left wing back from the river 
over the heights to the westward, threw up intrenchments, 
and awaited the approach of Burgoyne. He did not wait 
long. 

On the 13th, Burgoyne moved down on the west side of 
the river to Coveville. On the 17th he encamped near 
Sword's house, within four miles of the American army. 
Between him and the American camp, along the hills back 
from the river, there were several deep ravines to cross, and 
Burgoyne spent the i8th in making roads and bridges over 
these ravines. 

At ten o'clock on the morning of the 19th of September, 
Burgoyne broke up the camp at Sword's house, and dividing 
his army into three divisions, took up his march to attack 
the Americans in their intrenchments. General Burgoyne, 
in command of the center column, followed the road which 
he had cut the day before through the woods and across the 



SARATOGA AND THE NORTHERN WAR-PATH. 301 

ravines about a mile back from the river. Gen. Eraser, in 
command of the right wing, took a circuitous route about 
a mile further back from the river than Burgoyne, while 
Gen. Phillips and Gen. Riedesel, with the left wing pro- 
ceeded down the road along the river's bank. 

The country was then all covered with its primeval for- 
ests, in which was here and there a small clearing with its 
lonely, deserted log cabin. On the road which Burgoyne 
took with his center column, there was one of those little 
clearings, which lay about a mile north of the American 
camp, and a mile back from the river. This clearing con- 
tained some twelve acres of ground. It was about the size 
of two city blocks, and was called Freeman's farm. 

In that little clearing in the old wilderness, on that 19th 
day of September, 1777, was fought one of the few decis- 
ive battles of the world.* 

I will not weary the reader with its details. The battle 
began about noon, at the log house, where a company of 
Morgan's Riflemen was stationed when the pickets of the 
center division of the British army reached the clearing. 
The British pickets, who were commanded by Major 
Forbes, were soon driven back to the main column, and the 
pursuing American riflemen routed in turn. 

Reinforcements soon coming up from the American camp, 

* Henry Hallam, author of the celebrated work, the " View of the 
State of Europe during the Middle Ages," defines decisive battles as 
" those battles of which a contrary event would have essentially varied 
the drama of the world in all its subsequent scenes." E. S. Creasy, pro- 
fessor of history in the University Col. of London, has selected fifteen 
battles, beginning with Marathon, which took place 2366 years ago, and 
ending with Waterloo, in 1815, as the only ones coming within this 
definition. Among the fifteen he names Saratoga. — Vide Gen. Bullard's 
Historical Address at Schuylerville, July 4th, 1876. 



302 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

and the main central British column under Burgoyne ad- 
vancing into the clearing, at three o'clock the battle became 
general. Like the waves of a stormy sea the combatants 
drove each other back and forth across that little clearing 
all the afternoon for four weary, bloody hours, until night 
closed the scene. 

When the shadows of that night passed over that bloody 
field, the cause of American Independence was won ! 

At the conclusion of the fight, the Americans returned 
to their camp on the heights. They had scarcely a single 
round of ammunition left in their magazines. Had the 
British renewed the attack on the morrow, they would have 
achieved a bloodless victory, but they were too much crip- 
pled by the fight to renew it again so soon. Upon how 
slender a thread does the fate of nations sometimes hang. 
Gen. Gates alone knew the terrible secret, and a large sup- 
ply coming up from Albany the next day, the danger was 
averted.* 

The British encamped on the field of battle, and occupy- 
ing the plain to the east of it, down to the river's bank at 
what is now called Wilbur's Basin, threw up a line of in- 
trenchments from the river to the Freeman farm, corres- 
ponding with the American works at Bemis' Heights. The 
two armies remained in this position for eighteen days. 

Again on the afternoon of the yth of October, the British 
marched out of their encampment to make another attempt 
to turn the left wing of the American army. The Ameri- 
cans marched out of their intrenchments to meet them, 
bearing down upon them with such fury that in less than 

* Neilson's Burgoyne's Campaign. 



SARATOGA AND THE NORTHERN WAR-PATH. 303 

an hour the British were driven into their camp with great 
slaughter. 

Then around the British camp at Freeman's Farm the 
battle raged furiously till nightfall, the Americans carrying 
the British out-posts at the point of the bayonet as the 
darkness set in. Once more on Freeman's Farm, and on 
the hill to the west of it where the first attack was that day 
made, the dead bodies of the slain lay upon the ground 
"as thick as sheaves in a fruitful harvest field." 

On the morning of the eighth the British were all hud- 
dled down around the Smith house at Wilbur's Basin, and 
the victorious Americans had advanced to the plain just 
below them. 

At sunset on the evening of the eighth the British buried 
Gen. Fraser in the great redoubt on the bluff overlooking 
the river near the Smith house, and soon after took up 
their midnight retreat toward the plains and heights of Sar- 
atoga. 

Then on the morning of the 17th of October, amid the 
crimson and golden glories of our American autumn for- 
ests, the like of which they had never seen before, the 
British marched out of their perilous camp " to the verge 
of the river where the old fort stood " — Fort Hardy — and 
laid down their arms as prisoners of war to the victorious 
Gates.* 

The Americans were now masters of the great northern 

valley. These old hunting grounds in the angle of the war 

* The Due de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, who in the year 1795, 
while on his tour through this country, visited this old battle-ground, and 
had all the points of interest pointed out to him by eye-witnesses of the 
scenes, says that the spot where Burgoyne surrendered his sword to Gates 
was in one corner of the grounds in front of the Schuyler mansion. 



304 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

trails were theirs. The country itself was from that day 
theirs. 

It is proposed to build a monument on the heights of old 
Saratoga in honor of the surrender. It is well to do some- 
thing worthy of a grateful people to keep in remembrance 
so important an event in their history as the surrender of 
Burgoyne and his army. If the ground on which the final 
surrender of the already beaten and conquered British ar- 
my took place is worthy of such honor, should there not 
also be something done to mark the spot where the terrible 
wrench of the battle came and was so bravely met in the 
field of that little clearing in the old wilderness, on the 19th 
of September, and the 7th of October, 1777.'' It has been 
objected that what was then called Freeman's Farm, where 
those battles occurred, is an out of the way place, where 
few would ever see a monument. Every man, woman and 
child in our country should make a pilgrimage to that old 
battle ground, and a monument be built upon it so high 
that all the people in the land can see the spot where their 
country was saved. 

VIII. 

THE SMALL BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SARATOGA. 

The village of Saratoga Springs lies on the south-eastern 
corner of the great highland region of the wilderness, and 
on the very edge of the system of old Laurentian rocks. 
Along in the valley which runs through the village, the hard 
Laurentian rocks terminate, and the softer rocks of the 
Trenton limestone and Hudson river slates begin. In the 
geologic fault or fissure which here occurs between these 
two systems of rocks, the mineral springs burst forth. The 



SARATOGA AND THE NORTHERN WAR-PATH. 305 

most easterly of the five great mountain chains of the wil- 
derness, the Palmertown range, ends in the northern part of 
the village, while the next chain westerly, the Kay-ad-ros- 
se-ra range, fills up its western horizon. Thus this village 
of Saratoga Springs sits at the foot of the Adirondacks, 
and while it sips its mineral waters, it breathes the pure in- 
vigorating air of the mountains. 

The first white man who visited Saratoga Springs, says 
Sir William Johnson, was a sick French officer whom an 
Indian chief brought from Fort Carillon for the benefit of 
the waters.* 

The next, it is believed, was Sir William Johnson himself, 
who came here in August, 1767. His faithful Mohawks 
brought him through the woods from Schenectady by the 
way of Ballston Lake to the High Rock spring. 

The High Rock of Saratoga, with its wonderful spring, is 
too familiar to need a description here. It was doubtless 
formed by slow accretions from the mineral substances de- 
posited by the flowing waters, until it assumed its present 
shape, with the water flowing over the top and down the 
sides. For a long time, however, before Sir William's visit, 

* " An Indian, it is said (of those no doubt 

Whom French intrigues had from this country drawn) 
In earlier wars a sick French captain led 
To these rare fountains to regain his health." 

— Mineral Waters, by Reuben Sears, 1819 

Sir William Johnson made this observation when he sold this tract of 
land to private individuals : " In tracing the history of these mineral 
springs, I could only learn that an Indian chief discovered them to a sick 
French officer in the early part of their wars with the English, but 
whether they were these very springs in this basin, or those at ten miles 
distance properly called Saratoga Springs, I know not." — Vide Morse's 
Gazetteer, article Ballston. 

39 



3o6 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

it had ceased to flow over the top, and had found some 
other outlet. 

According to an old Indian legend, while it was still 
flowing over the top, some squaws once bathed in it their 
sooty faces against the will of the water's spirit, and the 
offended waters, shrinking from their polluting touch, sank 
down in shame into the bosom of the rock, and never after- 
ward were seen to flow over its surface.* 

In the partition and division of the patent of Kay-ad-ros- 
se-ra among its owners, which occurred on the 2 2d of Feb- 
ruary, 1 77 1, lot 12 of the i6th allotment fell to the share of 
Rip Van Dam. This lot 12 was about three miles long and 
one and three-fourths wide. It contained over three thousand 
acres, and in it were all the mineral springs of Saratoga. Rip 
Van Dam having died many years before the division, his 
executors sold lot 12 to Jacob Walton, Anthony Van Dam 
and Isaac Low. After the war the state took possession of 
Low's interest in lot 12, and sold it to Henry Livingston 
and his brothers. In 1793 Walton purchased Anthony Van 
Dam's interest, and from that time the original title to most 
of the lands in the village can be traced to the Waltons and 
the Livingstons. 

In the year 1773, Dirk Schouten, the pioneer settler of 
Saratoga Springs, came up to chop his small clearing, to 
plant a few potatoes, and build his humble cabin on the 
bluff a little west of the High Rock spring. Schouten's 
route to the springs was from the Hudson to the east side 
of Saratoga Lake, thence across the lake in a bark canoe 
to the mouth of the Kay-ad-ros-se-ra river, thence up the 
river two miles to an Indian trail that led to the springs. 

* Chancellor Walworth's speech at Saratoga Springs, August 23, 1866. 



SARATOGA AND THE NORTHERN WAR-PATH. ^yOj 

The way to the springs is much plainer now-a-days than it 
was a hundred years ago. Before Schouten's cabin was 
completed, he quarrelled with the Indians, and they drove 
him away. 

In the next summer, that of 1774, John Arnold, from 
Rhode Island, with his young family, tried his fortunes at 
Saratoga Springs. He took possession of Schouten's de- 
serted cabin, and, making some improvements, opened a 
kind of rude tavern for the visitors of the springs. This 
pioneer hotel had but a room or two on the ground floor, 
with a chamber overhead. In sight of it were sixteen In- 
dian cabins, filled with their savage occupants. In the rocky 
ledges near by were numerous dens of rattlesnakes. There 
were so many of these reptiles then at the Springs, that the 
early visitors often had to hang their beds from the limbs of 
the trees to avoid them. Nightly, the wolves howled and 
the panthers screamed; daily, the black bears picked berries 
in the little clearings, and the wild deer and the moose 
drank from the brook, while the eagles yearly built their 
nests on the tops of the towering pines. Such was the 
style, and such were the surroundings of the first rough 
hotels of the wilderness springs of a hundred years ago, 
that led the way in the long line of magnificent structures 
that have since adorned the modern village. 

Arnold kept his little forest tavern for two summers, and 
was succeeded by Samuel Norton, who was driven away 
by the war of the Revolution, and for six years the springs 
were again left to their savage occupants. 

In the spring of 1783, a son of Norton returned to his 
father's deserted cabin, and remained until 1787, when 
Alexander Bryant became the owner of the Schouten house. 



308 NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

Bryant built a blacksmith shop, and another log tavern near 
by. It was in 1783, also, that Gen. Schuyler cut a road 
from old Saratoga, now Schuylerville, on the Hudson, into 
the Springs, and in the following year built his rude frame 
summer-house near the High Rock spring. 

In 1789 Gideon Putnam and Dr. Clement Blakesley 
settled at the Springs. Dr. Blakesley occupied the Schouten 
house, and Putnam located on his farm a mile west of the 
village. It is to the enterprise of Gideon Putnam that the 
village is indebted for much of its early prosperity. 

In 1790, Benjamin Risley, from Vermont, bought the 
Schouten house, and opened a hotel which was for ten years 
the rival of Bryant's house on the opposite corner of the 
little clearing near the High Rock spring. 

It was in the month of August, 1792, that Governor John 
Taylor Gilman, of New Hampshire, who had been a dele- 
gate in the Continental Congress, was staying at the 
Schouten house. Upon a sunny afternoon he took his gun 
and wandered up the creek into the deep woods in search 
of game. Coming to a little waterfall he found at the foot 
of it a small jet of sparkling water issuing from the rocky 
bank of the stream. Stooping down to taste it, he found 
the little sparkling jet, no bigger than a pipe-stem, to be 
mineral water. Hastening back to his boarding place, Gil- 
man made known his discovery.* 

Every person in the settlement was soon at the foot of 

* In May, 1875, I published an article entitled "Saratoga" in the 
Troy Times. In the summer following, the Messrs. Taintor, of New 
York, published their guide book entitled " Saratoga, and how to See 
it." In their guide book the Messrs. Taintor inserted large portions of 
my article on Saratoga without giving me credit for it. Some of the 
matter so taken I have reclaimed. 



SARATOGA AND THE NORTHERN WAR-PATH. 309 

that cascade in the deep, wild woods, wondering at the 
curious spectacle. You could almost count them all upon 
your fingers' ends. There were Risley and his family of 
the Schouten house. There was Alexander Bryant, the 
patriot scout of the Revolution, who kept the only rival 
tavern. There were Gen. Schuyler, and Dr. Blakesley, 
and Gideon Putnam, and Gilman's brother, and a few more 
guests who were at the little log tavern were all doubtless 
there. There too, were Indian Joe from his clearing on the 
hill, near where the Clarendon now is, and some of his 
swarthy brethren from their huts near the High Rock, won- 
dering at the strange commotion among the pale faces at 
the little waterfall in the brook. All, gathering around it, 
each in turn tasted the water of the newly-found fountain 
and pronouncing it of superior quality, they named it then 
and there the Congress Spring, out of compliment to its 
distinguished discoverer, and in honor of the old Continent- 
al Congress of which he had been a member. 

For many years afterward the water was caught in glasses 
as it ran from the rock. In attempting to increase its ca- 
pacity by removing a part of the rock the spring was lost. 
But bubbles of gas were noticed in the bed of the creek 
near by, and turning the creek one side, excavations were 
made in its bed. The spring was found and tubed, and 
has long since been world renowned. 

In the year 1794 John and Ziba Taylor opened a small 
store in one of the rooms of the Schouten house, and be- 
came the pioneer merchants of the Springs. 

In the year 1800 a new era dawned upon Saratoga Springs. 
In that year Gideon Putnam bought of Henry Walton an 
acre of land on what is now the site of the Grand Union, 



3IO NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

then in the depths of the old forest, and clearing off the 
heavy growth of pines, built the first of the large, commo- 
dious and elegant hotels for which Saratoga has since be- 
come so famous. Of the large hotels the Congress Hall 
was first opened in 1815, and the United States in 1824. 
Such were the small beginnings of the first quarter of a 
century of this great watering place up to a period within 
the memory of living men. 

During these, the centennial years of the first rude open- 
ings of the Springs in the northern wilds, this whole village 
is crowded with hotels, the largest, grandest, best appointed 
in the world, within a stone's throw of each other, and 
glittering with more than oriental splendor. When all 
lighted up of a summer evening, the streets filled with gay 
promenaders — the wit, the wealth, the fashion and the 
beauty of half the world all there, the scene presented is 
like that of some fairy land. Surely has some enchanter 
touched with magic wand those rude hotels of a century 
ago, and transformed them into palaces like those famous 
in eastern story. 

In reviewing these historical memories we have seen how 
the old Indian trails that surrounded Northern New York ; 
how the valleys of the St. Lawrence, the Hudson, and the 
Mohawk, how the shores of Lake Ontario, Lakes George 
and Champlain, as well as the old hunting-grounds oi Kay- 
ad-ros-se-ra and Sa-ragh-to-ga were for a hundred and 
seventy years the scenes of sanguinary warfare. To-day 
we look around us upon a brighter scene, and see how ninety 
years of smiling peace have made the fair borders of the 
grim old wilderness to "bud and blossom even as doth the 
rose." We have seen how a hundred years ago no one 






I 



SARATOGA AND THE NORTHERN WAR-PATH. 31I 

came to these old springs of the forest Kay-ad-ros-se-ra, 
now modern Saratoga, but serpents and wild beasts, and 
still wilder men. To-day we see how many steps from all 
the nations of the earth, in the pomp of modern travel, 
still following the routes of the old war-paths,* are turned 
toward this great watering place — this Mecca of our coun- 
try's highest civilization ; we see how all eyes are gazing 
at its sparkling, bubbling fountains, and how all lips are 
tasting of their healing waters. f 

* In the first chapter I give the names of ten populous cities that now 
lie along the great modern thoroughfares which have taken the places of 
the old Indian and colonial war-paths that surrounded Northern New 
York. Below I give their Indian names, with the signification of each : 

Albany, Ska-neh-ta-de — Beyond the open pines. 

Troy, Pa-an-pa-ak — The field of standing corn. 

CoHOES, Ga-ha-oose — The shipwrecked canoe. 

Schenectady,. . 0-no-a-la-gone-na — Pained in the head. 

Utica, Nuii-da-da-sis — Going around the hill. 

Rome Da-ya-hoo-wa-qiiat — Place for carrying boats. 

Syracuse, Na-ta-dunk — Pine tree broken with top hanging down. 

Oswego Swa-geh — Flowing out. 

Watertown,. . .Ka-hu-ah-go — Big river. 
Ogdensburgh,. O-swa-gatch — Flowing around the hills. 

f See Saratoga and Kay-ad-ros-se-ra, an Historical Address, delivered 
by the author at Saratoga Springs, July 4th, 1876. 



IN DEX 



Abeiiaqiiis, the 17 

Abraham, Plains of 136 

Adirondack, origin of name. . 40 

" Mountain chain,. 53 

Tark 43 

Village, 141 

Agariata, the Indian go 

Agouhanna, the Indian chief. 29 

Albany, first settlement ot . . . 276 

Algonquin family, 16 

Altitude of Mountains, 57 

" " Forest resorts, ... 86 

Andastes, the 16 

Apalachen, district of 11 

Argyle, 271 

Arctic Plants found in the 

Wilderness 54 

Arnold, Otis 175 

John 307 

Au Sable River 97 

" Chasm 97 

Avacal, district of 11 

Beaver Lake, 187 

Beaver Meadows, 64 

Beaver River, 100 

Belts of the Wilderness, .... 43 

Bemis' Heights, 300 

Black River, 99 

Blue Mountain 55 

Bonaparte, Joseph 201 

Bonaparte, Lake 200 

Boquet Mountain range, .... 52 

Boquet River, '52 

Brown, John, of Providence,. 171 

" John, of Ossawottamie 137 

Brown's Tract, 1 71 

Brunei, Mark Isamliart 159 

Bryant, Alexander 307 

Burden Iron Works, 231 

Burgoyne's campaign, 289 



Campbell, Laughlin 271 

Canada, origin of name 11 

Carignan-Salieres, regiment 

of 88 

Carleton Island, 256 

Carthage, village of, founded. 163 

Cartier, Jacques 27 

Castorland, 152 

Castles of the Mohawks, . . . 2S0 

Champlain, Samuel de 30 

" Madame de . . . . 35 

Charlotte County, 263 

Chase's Lake 82 

Chassinis, Pierre 153 

Chateauljriand, Viscount de.. 145 

Chateaugay River 98 

Charlevoix, Father, letter of.. 113 

Chaumont, Le Ray de 204 

Chazy River, naming of 88 

Coronelli, his map 103 

Couchsachrage, the Hunting 

Grounds of 39 

Council of de ha Barre 106 

Coureur de Bois, the 178 

Couture, Guillame 67 

Dauversiere, J. le R. de la . . . 252 

Deer River 104, 166 

De la Barre, 107 

Dellius, Godfrey. 264 

Desjardines, Simon 158 

De Stael, Madame 99 

Diana 203 

Diamond Rock, legend of. . . 206 

Donnacona 28 

I )rid, the Indian 179 

Dunklee, Joseph 223 

Dutch settlers of the Mohawk 

Valley 121 

East Canada Creek loi 



H 



INDEX. 



Eckles, Lady Betsey. ...... 130 

Elba, North 135 

Eries, the 16 

Families of Nations 16 

Famine Bay 113 

" River la 102 

Fenton, Orrin igo 

Five Nations, the 14 

" " Indian names of 19 
" " Festivals of. . . 22 
" " Social life of. . . 24 
" " Religious be- 
lief of 23 

Fort Anne 292 

" Brewerton, 281 

" Bull 281 

" Carleton 257 

" Carillon 298 

" Clinton 294 

" Edward 265 

" Frederick 279 

" Frontenac 258 

" Hardy 297 

" Herkimer 280 

" Hunter 279 

" Ingoldsby, 292 

" Lydius 266 

" Miller 292 

" Nassau 276 

" Nicholson 292 

" Ontario 281 

" Orange 276 

" Plain 280 

" Saratoga 292 

" Schuyler 281 

" St. Anne 89 

" St. Frederick 293 

" Stanwix 280 

" Williams 280 

" William Henry 297 

Foster, Nathaniel 177 

Gahenvv^aga 103 

(Jems found in the old Wild- 
erness 85 

(lilliland, William 129 

Oilman, John Taylor 308 

Goupil, Rene 67 

Grangula, Speech of the .... log 

Grasse River 98 

Henderson, David 143 

Ilerreshoff, Charles Frederick, 173 



Hiavi'atha 21, 105 

High Rock Spring 305 

Hochelaga 1 1, 28 

Hodenosauneega 14 

Horicons, the . 16 

Hudson, Henry 36 

Hudson River 94 

Hurons, the 16 

Indian Tribes 16 

" Trails 13 

Pass, the 58 

" River gg 

Independence River 100 

Irocoisia 11 

Iron Works, Upper 141 

Iroquois, Family of 16 

" Houses of 18 

" Original birth place 105 

" Sachemships 21 

Islay, Isle of 271 

Jogues, Isaac 67 

Johnson, Sir Wm 117 

Kalm, Peter 2g6 

Kayadrossera, Ancient Indian 284 

" Mountain chain 49 

Patent of 285 

Lake Avalanche . . 84 

" Chazy 82 

" Golden 84 

" Paradox 83 

" Saranac. . 82 

La Famine, River of 102 

Lakes of the Wilderness .... 80 

Lake Belt, 82 

Mountain Belt,. 83 

Lake Champlain, Discovery of 32 

" George, Discovery of. . 66 

" St. Sacrament 75 

Lansingburgh, village of 206 

La Presentation, 260 

Laurentian Mountain System, 45 

La Motte, Isle of 8g 

, Le Moyne, Simon 251 

Lesser Wilderness, 10, 103 

Lines of property, Indian. . . 15 

Lowville, village of 221 

Luzerne Mountains 48 

Lydius, John Henry 266 

Macomb's Purchase .♦. . ig6 



INDEX. 



^5 



Maintenon, Madame de . . . . 51 

Maisoneuve, Sieur de 253 

Marie de I'lncamation, 91 

Martyrs, Mission of the 78 

McCrca, Jennie 267 

Mclntyre, Archibald 136 

Molly Brandt 119 

Mohawk River loi 

Mohawk, Castles of the. . . . 280 

Mohicans, the 16 

Montagnais, the I7. 32 

Montreal, birth-night of 252 

Moose River 99 

Morris, Gouverneur 163 

Moscosa, district of 11 

Mosses, Sphagnous 63 

Moss Lake 54 

Mount Dix 52 

Marcy 53 

" Mclntyre 53 

Lyon 55 

Pharoah 49 

" Senongenon 48 

" Seward 54 

" Skylight 53 

" Whiteface 54 

Mountains of the Wilderness, 45 

Mountain Passes 58 

" Meadows 62 

Chains 47 

" Peaks 50 

" Table of heights,. . 57 

Murray, Lady Amelia 175 

Nachlenak 37 

Narragansets, the 17 

Neutral Nation, 16 

New France, 10 

Nipissings, the 17 

North Elba 135 

Norumbcga 11, 31 

Nunil)cr Four 187 

O'lhien, Lady Susan 120 

Ogdensburgh 260 

O'Kane, James 192 

Olier, Jean J 252 

Onnontio 76, log 

Opalescent Is^iver 84 

Oriskany 125, 280 

Oswego 275 

Palatines, 121 

Palmortown Mountains 48 



People of the long house .... 17 

Pharoux, Pierre 159 

Picquet, Francois 261 

Piskaret, the Indian 75 

Putnam, Gideon 309 

(Quebec 28 

Raquette River 98 

Recamier, Madame 150 

Rivers of the Wilderness,. ... 94 
" falling into Lake Cham- 
plain 96 

Rivers falling into the Hudson 95 
" " St. Law- 
rence 98 

Rivers falling into the Black 

River, 99 

Rivers falling into the Mohawk loi 
" in the Lesser Wilder- 
ness, 104 

Rogers, Capt. Robt 136 

Sabelle, the Indian 137 

Saguenai, district of 10 

Saint-Michel, Louis F. de. . . 167 
Salmon River, of the North. . 98 
" " of Lake On- 
tario ro2 

Saranac River 97 

Saratoga, Indian 282 

Saratoga Springs, early history 

of 304 

Scarron Mountain 49 

" Madame 53 

Schaghticoke Indians 94 

Schenectady 277 

Schouten, Dirk, first settler at 

Saratoga Springs. 306 

Schroon — see Scarron. 

Schuyler, Peter 288 

" Philip 299 

Seigneuries, French 12S 

Sistersfield 166 

Skene, Philip 268 

Skenesliorough 268 

Smith, David 1S4 

Smith's Lake 1.83 

Stadacone 28 

St. Plelene, Lieut, de St. at- 
tacks Schenectady in 1690 28S 
St. Lawrence of the Olden 

Time 250 

St. Malo 31, 145 



a 



I 



f 



i6 



INDEX. 



9 



^' 



Stillwater, on Hudson 289 

" on Beaver River . . 192 

Tera Corterealis 10 

Thousand Islands 237 

Ticonderoga 71 

Tillier, Rodolphe 163 

Tobacco Nation 16 

Tom Garnet, story of 273 

Tracy, Marquis de 90 

Trenton Falls loi 

Troy, city of 230 

Tryon county 116 

Tuscaroras, the 16 

Two Water Wheels, story of. 2j$ 



Utica, city of 250 

Van Curler, Arendt 76 

Van Ortelius, Abraham 10 

Vlaie, Sacondaga 63 

Voltaire school of thought. . . 148 

Wampanoags 17 

Watson, James T 196 

'^Vest Canada Creek loi 

Whitehall, 268 

Wilderness, the Great 10 

Willsboro, Manor of 128 

Wilton, Battle of in 1693. . . . 290 

Winthrop, Fitz John 289 



j^O 



